Preface

Your road to HR success

Being an entrepreneur means being an optimist by conviction: to keep going with enthusiasm and pursue ambitious goals. This rang especially true in 2023, as geopolitical conflicts, an economic downturn, climate change and the energy crisis affected the way we live and work. Moreover, companies doing well often had to slow their growth ambitions due to labour market talent shortages.

We cannot solve these major societal problems on our own. But we remain positive and are convinced that we can partly contribute to the solution by helping employers and their employees to manage their impact as best as possible. Together, we are on the road with our customers, helping them navigate their way to HR success.

After all, while the workforce takes up the biggest share of a company’s budget, it is also its biggest asset. SD Worx is there to keep employers and their employees in good shape. This is how we can make a difference for our customers in the world of work.

Customers in the driver’s seat

The economic downturn has put cost management ever higher on the corporate agenda, for us as well as for our customers. That is why we offer tools that increase (cost) efficiency for our customers’ business, such as AI-based workforce management technology, reward systems, our 24/7 online academy to train talent, or data dashboards enabling evidence-based HR. At the same time, we are developing even better services and software to attract, pay, reward, develop and retain talent. Our large-scale European studies give employers insights into what is on the minds of their peers, and how employees across Europe view work in the broadest sense.

Everything we do has a single goal: to spark success at the heart of our customer’s businesses, enabling them and their people to thrive.

A clear direction – and the endurance to get there

To achieve this goal, we continue to set the bar exceptionally high. Our ambition to be the trusted, leading European HR solutions provider for all organisations and their people has not changed. There is a clear growth strategy that we have been implementing step by step for years to achieve our ambition.

We are not doing this because we just want to be the biggest. We want to be the best in terms of customer experience. Of course, size matters: our strong position as an independent market leader – recognised by our customers, but also by analysts, the media and investors – makes us a stable and trustworthy partner.

SD Worx is here to stay, for our customers, from local micro-enterprises to multinationals, wherever they operate, as well as for our employees and other stakeholders. They, too, recognise the direction we are heading and believe that they can continue to grow with us. Particularly in these uncertain times, our robustness, consistency and ongoing development of our offering provide reassurance and peace of mind.

On track for continuous growth and improvement

Our annual figures reflect these high ambitions, thorough implementation, continued commitment, and the trust of our customers. This has enabled SD Worx People Solutions to excel, achieving exceptional results, organic growth and strong profit figures. SD Worx Staffing & Career Solutions, which operates in a particularly cyclical business, experienced a downturn. Thanks to the hard work of this business, however, it outperformed the market in the last quarter.

Overall, these can be considered the best-possible results in a year marked by macroeconomic hurdles. Everyone at SD Worx has committed to giving their best as one team, to our joy and pride. This is what our company value ‘One for all, all for one’ stands for. Thank you and congratulations to all!

Grateful for our co-pilot

2023 also marked the arrival of minority shareholder CVC. The fact that we were able to attract an international investor of this calibre that fully believes in SD Worx and respects our culture and DNA – well… It is a perfect match. And with majority shareholder WorxInvest giving us the autonomy to take every opportunity to execute our growth strategy, we remain an independent company.

Having such a strong shareholder base – represented on our Board and actively involved in defining the next strategic steps – generates remarkable added value for the development of SD Worx. Most importantly, our customers also benefit from this stronger foothold and expertise.

In it for the long run

We cannot rest on our laurels, though. Now that we are present in most European countries, we will continue to broaden and deepen our portfolio. This will be achieved both organically and through acquisitions, just as we strengthened our SAP offering, payroll & HR services and workforce management solutions with Gavdi Poland, Romanian Software and SoftMachine in 2023. All the while, we remain driven by customer needs, societal developments and technological innovations such as AI.

After all, the only way of winning our customers over is if we continue to strive for maximum efficiency, the best offering, the greatest relevance and the highest customer satisfaction. Furthermore, we must continue our streak of year-on-year market share growth: it means that customers continue to see us as the right partner. That is and has been our compass for nearly 80 years.

In short, we are incredibly grateful to have such an enthusiastic team and such loyal customers, who allow us to pursue this ambitious path. Thank you all, we will never take this for granted!