EIJI
KOIKE
President
& Chief Executive Officer
A business overview by Eiji Koike, President & CEO
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This year’s earnings result is the highest profit level achieved in the last 10 years and with a solid track record, the Group’s strategy for steady and sustainable growth is now fully validated.
I am very proud that Cerebos has continuously improved through a combination of focus and good strategy. At the start we had to build up our key infrastructure and gradually enhance and expand our capabilities. The fact is that the Cerebos you see today is an organisation that is a far cry from the company that existed a decade ago.
We have restructured and transformed so that
we are less vulnerable to the cyclical trends of
the food-commodity business. Today, our
businesses, built around health supplements,
coffee and sauces, account for the bulk of our
turnover and profit. And these products are
continuing to enjoy strong demand and growth
across Asia-Pacific.
A critical component of the re-engineering was the introduction of the health supplement tablets category. With this change, Cerebos is now competing in the mainstream health supplements business – an industry that is growing by double digits in Asia and we foresee this to be the growth engine of the company.
In the Coffee category, we have made good inroads into the instant coffee segment in Australia and also stablished our gourmet coffee credentials with several acquisitions in New Zealand. With a growing coffee culture in Asia Pacific, our high-end coffee expertise will see this being our second growth engine.
For our Sauces segment, we have managed
to establish our brands as reliable and wellloved
favourites. We have also made progress
with new flavours and more convenient
packaging formats. This category will remain
our stable base catering to the varied meal
solution needs of modern day families.
These milestones mark the start of Cerebos' transformation from simply a food company towards a Lifestyle business.
I am also pleased to acknowledge that Cerebos has rebuilt its process and management infrastructure adding increased professionalism and new skillsets in several areas of strategic importance - Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Research & Development (R&D), Human Resource Management, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and more recently Supply Chain Management (SCM).
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EIJI
KOIKE
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In summary, our performance in recent years has been reasonable given the challenges of the fast-changing business environment. To reach our goals for the next and following years requires us to be very circumspect and to know our strengths, our values and our passions. To quote from the father of modern management, Peter Drucker: “The company must constantly be on a strategic tightrope towards the future, finding this balance even as the safety net below is shrinking”. For the next three years we are setting a challenging target to maximise our sales growth. This is an ambitious aim but given our current circumstances many strong reasons exist to lend confidence that the future of Cerebos is filled with huge growth potential. Over the next few years, we plan to increase investments in supporting key brands, improve R&D capabilities and increase manufacturing capabilities. These are vital for us to accelerate the performance of the Group from what some might term “Good” to what I envision will be“Excellent”. Our Cerebos team is confident of our path to strengthen the company and grow the business faster. It is a proven team with proven strengths and with a clear purpose – to grow Cerebos into a powerful global contender in the business arena. We have expended a great deal of time and effort to prepare our business strategy going forward. Much in-depth analysis has been done on the regions and countries where we operate, to identify the important factors and trends that will determine our next Mid Term Plan (MTP) success. We are well prepared with sufficient understanding and wherewithal to pre-empt consumer needs. With the business steady and with stakeholder interests properly looked after, we have overcome the challenges of the last MTP and have made a smooth landing as predicted. The immediate future will be geared towards eliminating all barriers to growth. It is with this “Excellent” performance in mind that I proposed this year’s annual report design. Let’s flag off to another year of exhilarating achievement in the fast lanes – and watch us accelerate!
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Pacific Limited, Singapore Tel: (65) 6212 0100 Fax: (65) 6226 2126 |
