Thank you, Peter Clemenson. And that brings us to the next item, which is a presentation by the CEO. Before we cede the floor to Martin Lundstedt, I have a point of order. There has been some requests that we during the presentation that will take the format of a conversation between Martin Lindstedt and Mirodabas. There's been some questions there as to whether it's possible to take photos during that session and on the condition that only people on stage are photographed.
Can the meeting agree with such a proposal? We find it so. Then I will cede the floor to Martin Lundstedt and Miguel de Baas. Please. Thank you.
Hello. To you who don't recognize me as well as you recognize Martin, I'm just going to briefly say that my name is Milla Uddavas. I am an economic journalist many years at Susquehanna Rodnes, Swedish Television Aktou Eld, and I've graduated from Stockholm School of Economics. I've moderated in this fashion over the past few years. I'm also shareholder.
I've got my share that I told you about last year. I bought in 2,007 hours' time for those who were there. The share was at the same value as now, roughly. So it's now starting to get better. So me and Martin is going to delve into the eternal questions that the chairs, I know you mentioned in the next few minutes.
Martin, we met a year or a year ago. It's been a fantastic year for Volvo. The Chairman, Carlos Valver, said there was the highest turnover, highest profit and the history of the group. Let's start with a sports question. How do you feel?
It feels good. Well, of course, it feels good. It's fantastic. Fun to be part of running a company and the year that we've had 2017, starting off by thanking all the employees for job well done. And then you could say that several factors have contributed to this naturally.
We've got a market situation, which is coordinated upwards throughout the world. There's various players that try to throw in obstacles to this, but we've got a very strong market situation across the world that plays in. But that which also is gratifying to see is that all of our business areas are showing improvements. All of them are showing improvements from their preconditions in a very positive manner. So feels good.
So both the world and Volvo is doing great. Well, I read in the last report, you were asked a question, Amelia, you were asked ask you, what prevents you from getting hubris? Well, both that when we're working with the operations, we see a lot things that remains to be done together. There's a lot of potential for improvement, possibilities. And it's a world that's ever changing very rapidly that I suppose we're going to talk about a bit later.
I don't have time for any hoo, Bruce, if I put it that way. Okay. But if we capture that all, also, what kind of improvements remain to be made when you've done such a great year? But primarily, one of the major strengths I feel that we've got a clear organization that we much quicker can get a grip on. Where the potential for improvements are for various, both business areas and geographies, it's not the same, is it?
There are a couple of common denominators of what good development comes with product quality, but a lot remains to be done. We protect our customers in a good way, but it comes at a greater cost, too great cost. And we're not leading to any value creating to any party, if I put it that way. We will see that we've been after sales service business, which is called aftermarket, but also also about vehicles. And there's a lot to be done there, primarily also maybe to see that we have the right balance.
Lots can be done with transport, logistics and infrastructure, and that we are then well equipped when it comes to innovation and business model. Model. We'll talk about that later as well. Now your strategy is about continuous improvement. You've got the sales organization based on brand and then you decentralize the responsibility.
You take this as just close to customer. How does that work in practice? Can you give some tangible examples? Well, I always feel that things take too long, don't I? But having said this, I feel still that we've got a good pace in the change processes and in the cultural development of the company.
We'll take a starting point and a stance on what we're doing, talking about our values and how we implement them. It's just that maybe I said at the Annual General Meeting in the past, it's not just posting a sticker where it says attractive go out to the club and then hopefully you get picked up. We live our value for them. And the 2 things we've been focused a lot about on when it comes to our relationship versus the world, the customer focus, money is not going to fall down from the sky, It comes from customers who want to work with us and performance. That is our results, performance as an organization.
And between that, trust, passion and change. Why do I bring this to the fore? Well, the 2 first factors talked about, I think that's been a big change of our culture. We how we change all this organization through decentralization, coming closer to customer, understand the needs of our customers. How can we cater to these needs and how can we take charge?
At the same time, we're very actively with using all the competence of all the people that we have, creating this trust. We work as much. It has to be fun, for real, if I put it that way. And I think we're heading the right way. We get feedback from customers and employees that we are on the right path.
We should continue with this, Focus on the customer, the success of the customer. You changed the culture you talked about last year. Have you done? Have you changed the culture now? Is it ready?
Starting off with an organization is dependent upon that the surrounding world and the round world round is constantly in flux and change. I think we've come a good way down the path we want to trot, but there's always areas where we continue to work. What's gratifying, once again, great focus and good focus on customers, focus on understanding and being part of the business, clarity that we can take care of various brands, geographical investments that we've made and ensure that more people feel ownership. I think we've reached far there. I'm also happy to see we've got work environment, safety, health for our employees high up on the agenda and several factors that I believe culturally are imperative in order to reach good results both for ourselves and our customers.
And finally, for all you who are assembled here today. Well, they are the ones cashing at the end. I hope that I have one share, don't I? Let's delve deeper into the operations in a minute. But first, if we broaden our vision to the global macro environment, what kind of challenge do you see facing us that affect you?
Well, there's many different challenges. You know that if you read about it on a day to day basis. But geopolitically, starting at that end, what you can see is that there are, through globalization, also an increased pressure for various kind of protectionism. It's natural. The larger has to have the flexibility in order to work through these situations.
But naturally, also, when it comes to, for instance, climate change issues, imperative and naturally a challenge, but also a great possibility because it's going to lead to new business models and business opportunities. We view and we see e commerce, take that as an example, huge trend. We see transport is going to increase considerably and that has to be done sustainably. So a lot is going on. So how do you keep up?
There is a big discussion we've read about in the media, for instance, bottlenecks with your suppliers. How are you on that front? Well, that's been a moving target, hasn't it? What's happened, I've say, has been a continued uprise. We've had strong Europe for many years.
China is getting back there or has come back strong during the past year. North America is now bouncing back also Latin America and the resource intense countries with mining activities, etcetera. Now what's happened actually since Q2 2017 is that we've got been trying to run after the increased order that we have received. I expressed that Q1, I believe, they're reporting. But that during Q2, beginning of Q3, we're running after the train.
Sometimes end of Q3, we managed to struggle up to the last carriage of the train. And now we are in the restaurant carriage, But we're not resting there on our laurels. We continue forward on the train. But what's continued is also that the order intake has continued north. So when we've eliminated bottlenecks internally and externally with our suppliers and that organization have been done an enormous job, Actually, our sales organization has had a good taste of selling even more.
And then we've tried to increase even further. So there has been a balance between how much should we increase, how much can that cost, because it costs in the short
term when
it comes to fun, expedient transports and over hours. But then on the other hand, the importance of having installed base with our customers that we can live off of during many years, sometimes aftermarket sales. So now you are in the restaurant carriage, but you're on the way to the engine. Heading forward, we have to. In both our structural measures, and we need to make another capacity investment, but do that within the existing structure so that we have a good leverage, but also to, in time, build better resilience against these type of oscillations, and that's on general level.
Another thing we read about in the media over the past few days is that there's been tangible liability claims after this fine from the EU last year where UN truck manufacturers were having antitrust suits. So can you aid me here? How big are the damages we talk about here? Well, then Peter, who's responsible, has ordered it, expressed himself, but we cannot make the assessment right now. But I'd like to start at the end where we talked about already at the last AGM that this investigation regarding 97, 2010, Volvo Group made the assessment that it will enter a reconciliation agreement, and it's sad having to reach that position.
But we need to bear in mind, important that everyone's listening at the EU Commission, they maintain that their decision concerns a formal infringement of the EU antitrust legislation and don't draw any conclusions when it comes to the effects on customers and the market. And our conviction, which I communicated already last year, is that there has been no effect with our customers. We have to make a difference. What's been a formal infringement of rules and these as time go and show what we've done and why our conviction is just what I mentioned. These customers are, of course, convinced, that's why they're suing you, that they have had damages that are financially based.
There's no reason for me to speculate further. We've gone over millions of documents internally fully in order to understand and improve and ensure that there will be no even formal infringements of any rules and regulations going forward naturally. We want to I say we also want continuously in the future win business on the customers feeling we are the best solutions. That's in a constructive way, we should show that, that is the case. It's going to be the case and has been the case.
If I guess, you haven't made any provisions in the annual report because you cannot make the estimate. Exactly. And I can just reiterate what Peter Clements have mentioned that we've got a very careful assessment when it comes to management, Board of Directors and together with our auditors, we've come to this conclusion. Something which is more nice to talk about is the share price. These 3 years that you've been at the fall, the share price has doubled.
148.60, I saw an hour ago, actually. You called the darling of the stock markets. You were one of the rockets last year. You've smashed out the industry index. You're laughing.
Have you reached a peak? Was it end of time now? Well, posit net, if you just peak, then you should do something else. No. I think you should think about it this way.
What drives the positive or any kind of development when it comes to share price? Well, if you deliver, that will be noted in results. So the actual results, and I believe that feel people feel we've got a long term and sustainable improvement during many quarters, That's fundamental. Future prospects play into a large part, of course. What are the prospects for the future when it comes to our industry and our possibilities of being competitive?
And then there's a third major factor. It's about trust for the company and its ability to counter various type of situations that account. And I think gradually, these three factors have come together for Volvo, and we should continue to promote this. We meet a lot of investors, both Swedish and foreign investors, and it's gratifying to see that the foreign interest has increased within Volvo. We took one of the 4 cornerstones for us and for the board and all our employees when it comes to building long term value for our owners.
And it's about underlying, naturally, profitability improvement. It's about continued improvement of our resilience being in a cyclical business and is resilient to that. It's about good, responsible allocation of capital, both when it comes to future investments, but also when I talk about capacity. We've been a bit high there historically. We see now with the structure that we have that we can strike a good balance of the 4 naturally going forward that we catch up and at the forefront of innovation.
I think that these factors now are gaining ground step by step. So there's more to hope for. Once again, I'd like to say that if you're a group, Ed, and you lead 100,000 employees and if you say we're done, then I think the actual boss over here would say that, Martin, time now you have to go and play the guitar, do something if I would say that. That bodes well for the future. You've got new financial targets, Colangelo, I talked about.
The EBIT margins would be in excess of 10% of the economic cycle. You reached 9.1% last year. When do you reach 10% of EBIT margin? Well, once again, I think an important thing to bear in mind when we talk about economic cycles starting off with, it's clear that we want to see that we reach that target regardless of what point we are in the cycle, of course. But that's going to be a milestone for us when we do.
But after that, it's very important to continue to work. It's like how do we need to handle a full cycle in order to have a company which is an absolute world class in our industry. The reason for, and I think that the Board had a very good discussion, chose this target. This target, it's a simple and easy to understand me. If you can reach that over the cycle, then you are among the top of the industry.
So good and clear measure where we also need to take these 4 pillars that I talked about into consideration. And then I also feel that the others now have a good and strong balance sheet with a net debt target, as stated, and naturally also the financial activity. So clear, good, simple. You can't really talk away from it. You have to deliver.
When do you deliver 10% first time? Once again, let's not speculate about this. I have to try, of course, you should try, but I think you should see that we've got an underlying improvement, which is going in the right direction. You raised the dividend, Columba, by told that, from 1 with SEK 1 to SEK 4.25. That's positive.
It mirrors both the actual results and the room for maneuver. The Board's suggestion is that they believe in the future and also well balanced, in my mind, level of dividends that we continue to build strong financial position because we are maybe not on the peak. I shouldn't say that, no. There will be some speculation about that. But we're in a good point when it comes to the economic cycles.
Therefore, we need, during this period of the economic cycle, build a strong balance sheet in order to manage the cyclicality in the industry, good balance. And I think a lot of shareholders appreciate it, and it's going to be very important for our financial rating and also our financial activities. It keeps very wise. Everything has been pointing north when you assumed as you're quite untested when it comes to a downturn. Would you be ready?
We are untested. It's true when we look at the European activities, but do remember that 2016 was quite bloody when it comes to North America. We came into a stage with very tough preconditions of Volvo Construction Equipment, where I feel that the organization, and I take Construction Equipment separately, have done a fantastic job in the turnaround during 2015, 2016, 2017. And naturally, part is the market, but a large share of it is internal improvements. So I think there's several good proofs of flexibility and rapidity and ability to react, but naturally, there's more to do.
But you've been trying somewhat. If we look into detail a bit more in your activities, you launched several new products during the year. I think we should see a few slides on that while we're talking. What does the customer say? Do they like these new products?
Oh, yes. Well, to begin with, we had a favorite field there. But we'll do this very briefly. Yes, yes, we'll do that. Just very briefly.
But we heard about it previously. In Asia, it's been a large number of launches in the premium segment for Unitrucks. We see some pictures of that here. And also concerning a number of products for our development markets with UD trucks, excellent reception by the markets. And of course, major launches that are still ongoing in North America, both for Volvo Trucks North America in terms of regional traffic and long hauls.
It was has been excellently received. On the regional end, we've been overwhelmed by their reception. And also, our here's the MAC Anthem, also wonderfully received. We took a number of orders for MAC in this segment in November, December in 2017, more than we did throughout the entire last year. So that shows how appreciated they are.
Well, praise indeed. But now we're talking about hardware and trucks. But to you, it's more and more about services and developing services. Yes, and before we come to services, now we're showing a lot of pictures of trucks here. But we also have major launches for Volvo CE, wheel loaders and also for the large mining trucks where we're currently launching from the Terex acquisition and rebranding them as Volvo.
Penta has also had a number of major launches. So there's been a lot of things over the past year. And as you say, services is becoming ever more important to us. One major innovation that we started initiating in 2017 is our ability to update, as it were, with the cloud, I almost said, but updating software, the software in our various vehicles. And you say, why?
Why can't you do that? You can do that with your phone. But as you understand, this involves an enormous amount of Well, we can see that Europe is chugging along at a good high level, and that is very much linked to economic activity. I also see that there's an underlying impact, as I mentioned, with the e commerce, and that kind of adds to the energy in Europe. It's a relatively small adjustment, but still a good level.
And North America, to 180,000 to 300,000, that is an indication that things are doing well. And you've increased the prices. How do you see that balancing act between quickly gaining market share, becoming larger and improving profit margins? Well, to begin with, I don't believe in quickly gaining market share because you have to build confidence with customers over time. So at the moment, it's about meeting the demand and also gaining a number of segments, but also making use of the situation for a necessary price realization as it were, not least with our new products that generate a lot more value for our customers.
And we want a piece of that pie, of course, because this is production equipment we're selling. So next year, it's time for both Volvo Trucks and Renault to launch electric lorries in city traffic. That's a milestone. What's the situation there? Well, it's natural for us to continue producing for urban environments, for transports and transport of goods.
We have a leading position in buses. We have a number of buses at various stages of electrification. Now we continue building on a modular system to use components for trucks. It's very interesting. I see Klas is sitting down there.
He's launching an activity within the next few weeks. Actually, within Gothenburg, we've taken a decision for Volvo to launch here, and that is very closely linked to Electric City that we've been running with a number of different stakeholders. You're having competition as well. Tesla is launching an electric truck. Yes.
It's very interesting. And what's positive around these kind of solutions is that it initiates a discussion about what's suitable, what should it look like. And people are approaching this from a perspective of total cost of ownership across the entire lifecycle of the vehicle. And that is very important for these types of investments where you have to invest a little bit more capital at the point of purchase, but you get a lower life cycle cost. And I think it's excellent that we see more stakeholders driving developments here.
We'll talk more about collaboration and partnerships, but what is profitability like? And buses and trucks are the same level as CE? Well, we're not going to go into detail, but it's on par with a traditional bus or truck solution because you have more of a systemic approach. But the revenue streams are somewhat different across the entire lifecycle, but it's still a very good business case. So you're happy with that business case?
Oh, yes. Electromobility, it's part of this innovation agenda that you mentioned. What else do you do within that field? Well, anything about connected vehicles. Not only that we have connected vehicles, Internet of Things, as they call it, or in a different terms, I mean, all of that is still in place.
We have 750,000, 800,000 connected units today. But how do we use that data? How can we become ever more proactive in partnership with our customers? There's so much more to do there. And the entire automation agenda, different degrees of automation, self driving vehicles and cars and machines.
And many of those solutions will be implemented more quickly within our sectors compared to what people like to talk about cars. And the reason is that we have so many applications that operate in demarcated areas, mining, mines and industrial areas. So it's easier there to let them free. Yes, well, it is a more controlled environment, and the gains are enormous, both in terms of efficiency, but say mining, for example, work environment, safety aspects, those are incredibly important in this regard. You're also involved in your own innovation center.
Yes, the X Hole. It's not going to be called that later. Or I shouldn't say that. So now it's named the X Hole. I think it's an excellent name really because the X Hole was the final plant where we produced trucks in Lundberg.
Now we're producing in Tove. And it's a beautiful building that we will be redesigning with our engineers, and our employees will be working in an excellent environment. We can combine hardware and software, and we can invite other stakeholders as well to get this cluster of innovation and ecosystem. We can have maybe a joint AGM. So I could check on that.
All right, sure. Oh, gosh, they're going to we're going to get some flack for that. Oh, no, no, we decided now. Now technology, we talk a lot about that, and that drives a lot of your business. But you're also talking a lot about driving prosperity through Transport Solutions.
You're a piece of the urban planning puzzle as it were. We're going to have a look at a film that shows us what the future might be like. Let us do that.
The world is changing fast. Cities are growing and urban population is rising. The need for transport of people and goods are increasing, but so is congestion, air pollution, road accidents and climate change. We need more mobility, but we have to do it in a smarter way. This is our scenario for the future.
Outside the city, vehicles and autonomous trailers are operating within safe and confined areas. Electric vehicles are charged while goods are loaded. A driver enters to lead the connected convoy onto the public roads, where dedicated bus lanes should be used if possible. Autonomous connected trailers create safe, modular and flexible vehicle convoys adapting to transportation needs. Adjusting to schedule updates, the flexible convoy switching goods along the way, a mobile consolidation center.
The transport system is enabled through an integrated cloud platform, connecting vehicles, people, infrastructure and logistic partners. In the city, the sensors of the autonomous refuse truck detect all movements in the vicinity of the environment and reacts automatically to any potential incidents, making sure citizens are safe and preventing accidents before they happen. Bus Platooning will improve efficiency and capacity in city public transportation. With silent emission free buses, we can bring public transport closer to people and even drive inside of buildings. This opens up completely new opportunities for city planning.
Fast and efficient way of charging from the electric grid at the end terminal in just a few minutes. How do we build the cities and the the the electric compact excavator access to environmental zones in the city. Imagine a silent and emission free city. Imagine a cleaner, safer and more resource efficient world without compromising our everyday life and health. The future is now and we are ready.
So this is what you are preparing for. When we will see that full scale? Well, what's so interesting about visualizing scenarios like this is that you can just think freely outside of the box and where are we in terms of different scenarios. And what makes me happy is that we're investing in the right things and we have the skill and talent required to build these kinds of scenarios. And we will see, depending on the geography we're talking about, which city, the legislation, we have to have good flexible systems.
And we have to understand that we have to look at the overall picture. It's about the system solution. It's not about the technology alone. It's about how we apply it. You talked about how what it was like selling an electric bus to local councilor.
Yes, exactly. This is going to be raised to the power of 10. Well, you said that these innovations changes the business model. How does this change your business model and that of your customers? Well, what happens is that we have to be open to partner with different stakeholders in the value chain here and make sure that we have a clear and definite competitive edge in various particularly applications and in geographies because it's not going to be the same if we talk about mines in Brazil compared to urban transport in Malaysia.
So we have to have good modular system in terms of hardware and software. We have to have a strong local organization that is sufficiently flexible that can still make use of the opportunities from the group as a whole. So we have to work on that. We have to be open to partnerships and entire ecosystems because we will see a lot more of that in order to get the full value out of these kinds of solutions. And that is a cultural change, not only for Volvo, but for our industries.
To be fairly captive, you deliver a product and then a traditional aftermarket. But we are heading in that direction. We're working on it. And we have very skilled employees who both think and produce in those in this way, just like buses, for example. Yes, partnerships and new ways of collaborating.
I have a follow-up question to that. I will come to that in a minute. You have been discussing with politicians over the past year, fairly prominent politicians, President Trump, French President Macron. We'll have a look at the film here when Macron visited you at Volvo, and I think there was a Prime Minister accompanying him as well. Yes.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm very grateful also for Boho for hosting us here today.
So did you like the trucks, Macron? Oh, yes. We've done up into a Renault, so that felt good. There's been a bit of a chaos about protocol that it wasn't scheduled correctly. But I have to say, everyone was very happy and satisfied, not least the media.
They want a good picture, particularly in a Renault in this instance. So that was very positive. But what is important to us here, these are massive operations. You mentioned the United States and France. We have massive operations in both these countries.
We have a very strong regional grounding where we operate, and we need them collaborated excellently in face of these new challenges. So we're very proud of this. And then we signed this innovation agreement between France and Sweden. That was not, of course, a coincidence. What do you think of it?
We presented a number of innovations. So that was really interesting. You mean China as well, very important market to you. You were at the China Development Forum with China's leadership, for example, Prime Minister Li. What did you learn from that?
Well, there's so many things. I mean, China, they have such a wide ranging agenda. But if you bring their focus, and that was reiterated several times, and I think that we should bring that on board because there are such changes taking place in China. It's about the sustainability agenda. It's about the innovation agenda, moving from a manufacturing industry to an innovation and well, an innovation driven economy and how you want to reduce the massive differences between different regions and between countryside and urban areas, etcetera.
And we also know when the Chinese leadership and China as a country have very clear focus areas, things do happen. And that in turn will lead to, for example, transport logistics will change immensely, and we will be involved in that, contributing good solutions.
There will
be a lot of opportunities there. A lot of things have happened because speaking of China, you have a new major owner, the Geely Group from China, who is now, in terms of capital, the largest owner of Volvo, we think it is. Well, to begin with, we have to be careful about commenting on your shareholders. All I can say is that in connection with Geely, showing an interest like Kon Henrik said as well, they had an initial dialogue with us and he was talking to Xiaobin Li and Geely. We understand very well.
They support our strategy, our management, our Board. And in connection with that, several of the other major owners were communicating the same thing. And for company management, that's what's important, like we're discussing here. It's not like we're sitting thinking about what we're going to do next. We have a solid agenda that we're following.
And when we feel we have that support from our owners, then we can just keep driving at it. I read somewhere that you were curious. Yes, absolutely. They are too. They've also acquired a share of Daimler, somewhat unexpected, at least for us who are on the sidelines.
They also have an AGM now. That's your greatest competitor, what do you think? Well, I was surprised, I have to say. That's how I see it. Of course, we when we look around the world today, it's us and Daimler and then Volkswagen.
So we're the 3 global groups. So I was surprised, but it's not anything that I that's my reaction. Yes, I'm surprised. The Daimler CEO, Dieter Schatz, said that he is looking forward to partnering with Volvo Cars. And that is a technical collaboration.
People have talked about that. But he's not looking forward to collaborating with you since you are competitors. No, no. But I can only respond to Dieter there in the sense that we respect them immensely, but we'll beat them any day of the week.
I think he would say the same. Maybe he did say at the AGM today. Well, there is a notion called frenemies. Is that you and Daimler, friends' enemies? Well, I believe that you should have great respect for your competitors.
And Daimler and several others have been mentioned, big, competent players, very competitive industry. You need to bear in mind, so of course, we've got great respect for them. But once again, when you're out in the marketplace, we want to win. And that's what everyone within the Volvo Group fight for. Well, then we touched upon this question of cooperation.
How much can you cooperate with your competitors? Well, at this specific case, it's not a topic of discussion with any corporation, as Sesk gets said, and there's no such plans, I can say. But naturally, when it comes to we get questions sometimes when it comes to Volvo Cars, what's going to happen with that? First of all, you should bear in mind that we at Volvo Cars, we share the brand. And that's imperative, and we're happy for the success of Volvo Cars.
That's fun for Volvo Cars. It's good for Sweden and Gothenburg, and it's great for our joint brand. So that cooperation is going to continue. We've got a number of other that we do on a daily basis within several competitors and actors and players. We're going to continue investigating what's see what opportunities there are with Volvo Cars or GB, but primarily with a lot of other players as well.
So there's no difference. Here, we need to maintain our marching orders, but not with IMO. No, but I mean that type of dialogue that you potentially could have is when we get the question of, for instance, standards and questions that that's going to come together in an industry context, primarily with the EU Commission, etcetera. And there, the very clear rules of the game, what are applicable, and we abide by them. So to be continued, definitely.
Martin, finally, now we've got all of them here, the Board is here, many of the shareholders. What would you like to take the chance say? What would I like to say more than what you've already said? Well, thank, Mia, for a great discussion. But I'd like to take the opportunity to say that 2017 has been a great and exciting year to be at the head of the Volvo Group naturally, but we've got a lot left to give.
This is an industry where we're operating when it comes to transport, logistics, infrastructure. That is required. It's going to be more request, increasing population, increased wealth, increased expectations from population around the world, the urbanization, e commerce was not. So there's going to be considerably more transportation needs across the world. We need they need to be sustainable in the greater sense.
We've got preconditions to work with this strong modular system, strong brands. We've got exciting start in 2018, but also balanced investments in new, but also in our existing technologies, our network. So I view this positively, but not the least I feel it's gratifying a lot of employees and colleagues that I see when I'm glancing here across the hall. It's fun to see how everyone of my colleagues develop, and they are really keen on their jobs day to day. That's why we had such a strong 2017 as we've had.
Once again, where I started, thank you so much for your commitment for the Volvo Group and everyone around the world. I'm happy to see the development also when it comes to plurality within so many dimensions, naturally when it comes to men and women, but also how much talent we've got collected around the world that comes before, which makes us a globally strong company. Thank you so much for the commitment. I also like to take the opportunity of thanking you for extremely good cooperation with our Board. We've got a Board which is extremely competent and challenging us and work very close to Lars Rasmussen and Hakan Salmonson from the part of the executive management.
They've done a fantastic job for the firm. As we said yesterday night when we thanked them, we have to deliver more to it. And in that context, we also take the option to thank our employee members of the board who also do great work and strong efforts when it comes to the journey of Volvo, and they volunteer their time and they commit. Thank you so much. For your shareholders, believe in us, we're not going to disappoint you.
Thank you, Martin. Thank you.