Almost 3,000 employees attended the PENNY management conferences The list of external factors could go on and on. But the very well-attended conferences in Hanover, Cologne, Berlin, Unterschleißheim and Frankfurt under the motto "#WIRSINDEINS!" with almost 3,000 PENNY senior managers were also special from an internal PENNY perspective. Because these were the last management conferences for Stefan Magel. The 58-year-old has shaped PENNY for twelve years as COO. Under his leadership, the turnaround from problem child to one of the most popular discounters in Germany was achieved. He has played a key role in ensuring that PENNY is now perceived by the public as a company with values, attitude and continuity. This makes it all the more important that his successor, Dr Stefan Görgens, will take the helm on 1 October, a man who will build on these successes and at the same time align PENNY to the changing requirements. In addition to Stefan Magel and Stefan Görgens, Telerik Schischmanow, in his role as a member of the PENNY Management Board, and Philipp Stiehler, as Head of Merchandise Discount, provided insights into the current challenges at all five management conferences. All presentations were held under the well-known strategic fixed star: "The 1 MUST stand".

And at the end, the stage belonged to Stefan Magel, who was given a standing ovation lasting several minutes at each management conference by the chairman of the management of the respective PENNY region, who also moderated the event. A clear sign of how much Stefan Magel is recognised and appreciated not only as COO, but also as a person. An era is coming to an end.

Claus-Dieter Ziemann, Chairman of the Management of the Northern Region, with Stefan Magel "The past two years have been extremely stressful for you and for all of us. It felt like we had to adapt to a new situation every day, whether it was the sickness rate, the supply of goods or the mood of our customers. And yet we have the best performance among the leading discounters. That is an incredible team effort. My sincere thanks for that. This success is no coincidence; it shows that we are doing a lot of things right and that we have a concept with the Markthalle that appeals to our customers. Nevertheless, we must not let up, this year and the coming years will be extremely tough," says Stefan Magel, summarising the situation.

"We have converted more than 700 shops to the new concept since the beginning of 2020. That was an enormous feat and ultimately meant almost a week without revenue for each conversion. With this broad base, we see that we can still optimise in one or two areas. We need to further focus the market hall for the smaller markets. We need to present our special offers more clearly in order to remain attractive to our core customer group. And we need to better familiarise our new customers with this concept, which is unique in the German discount sector," adds the designated COO, Stefan Görgens. "With all these to-do's, however, we will not lose sight of one thing and that is you: our 28,000 employees who work hard every day for our success, who are the face of PENNY and embody our spirit," promises Görgens.

The designated COO, Dr Stefan Görgens Even though REWE Group - and thus also PENNY - invested a three-digit million amount in the first few months of this year to cushion the industry's sometimes completely unfounded demands for price increases, the company continues to invest heavily.

"For years, we have been pursuing the strategy of securing particularly attractive locations as our own properties. We will therefore be investing in stone again this year. We do not see the current situation as a crisis to which we are reacting frantically with cost-cutting programmes, but are remaining level-headed and equally cost-conscious. We have the economic strength to overcome the crisis and at the same time stick to our course. This will enable us to emerge stronger from this crisis," says Telerik Shishmanov confidently, looking at the figures.

Telerik Shishmanov However, all these measures and activities will only have the desired success if we manage to offer competitive prices and stabilise the margin at the same time. But no matter where you look, there are massive challenges: Scarcity of raw materials, raw material prices, supply of goods, energy prices, packaging costs, animal feed, fertilisers, lack of harvest workers or rising logistics costs.

The pressure on Philipp Stiehler's team is correspondingly high. New bad news comes in almost daily and the list of suppliers demanding price increases is getting longer by the day. "We see the entire spectrum: suppliers who have to make moderate and understandable demands, even though they have already made their contribution and taken precautions. But we also see large corporations that seriously believe they can increase their margins at the expense of us and our customers in these difficult times. We have no sympathy for this and reject such demands. We can see how hard-pressed our customers already are and how many of them don't know how to make ends meet. We will therefore continue to fight - if necessary with tough tactics - to ensure that we have affordable product ranges on the shelves. We will keep our price promise," says the Head of Ware Discount.