Key performance indicators
In 2008 we delivered another strong performance and made progress across all our KPIs.
| Our principal key performance indicators (KPIs) |
Year end 2008 |
Year end 2007 |
Operating margins
Maintain and strengthen margins |
13.15% |
13.09% |
Free cash flow
Maintain free strong underlying cash flow |
£219m |
£184m |
Return of capital employed (ROCE)
Achieve ROCE which exceeds our cost of capital |
20.4% |
19.6% |
Economic profit
Achieve steadily increasing economic profit |
£140m |
£110m |
Gearing - interest cover
Maintain efficent capital structure, with relatively low gearing |
7.4x |
8x |
Capital expenditure
Keep at or below 4% of revenue |
3.5% |
3.5% |
Retaining people
Senior management retention (annual salaries exceeding £90k p.a.) |
88% |
89% |
Overall employee retention
(industry average 2008: 82.7%, 2007: 81.9%)1 |
82% |
82% |
Controlling our environmental impacts
Continue to measure and assess our carbon footprint (tonnes CO2). CO2 emissions rose
10.4% against increases in Group turnover of 18% and staff numbers of 23% |
64,611 |
58,523 |