We use bright science to create brighter lives for all
In the current difficult market conditions, including price increases and production challenges, we have already made a lot of progress as HNC. That's a great team effort from all our people, especially given the squeeze we're in right now. For the coming years we want more focus, so we can use bright science to deliver on our purpose to create brighter lives for all. We strongly believe we can deliver on this ambition, because we have the right fundamentals to do so. We have an unparalleled portfolio of products, customized solutions and expertise. We are known for our innovation and we have a leading global reach in the market, touching the lives of billions of people. We are an established player in all of our ten segments, with unique cross-sector partnerships driving our purpose. We just want to build on our strengths and expand our horizon.
The six must-win priorities
As HNC colleagues, we all want to make an everlasting impact on people, nature, planet and society. It’s what we stand for, no matter what. We create products with purpose. And fortunately, we’re not the only ones, because a new consciousness is emerging. People are recalibrating their lifestyles to focus on what really matters. At the same time we realize that if we truly want to be the purpose-led leader in serving people, planet and livelihoods globally, we need to raise the bar. We need to challenge each other to make this happen. Therefore we defined six must-win priorities.
Must-win priority 1
Commercializing innovations & expanding portfolio
Over the last few years we developed a series of innovations with great potential that really address target consumer health benefits in the market. A very good example is our Ampli-D, a new vitamin D that boosts immunity for consumers. Another example are our HMO’s that replicate the nutritional ingredients in breast milk. They are critical for infants to develop the microbiome in their guts and prepare good future health. The world can’t wait on life improving products like this, because consumers and patients are depending on it. Therefore we want to accelerate our process in the coming years to bring products to life sooner, commercialize them and bring them to the market successfully. Besides that, we want to expand our product portfolio in naturals and probiotics (gut health) through Mergers & Acquisitions.
Must-win priority 2
Accelerating growth in China
As HNC, we have a relatively low market share in China. If we want to reach many more people, we really need to achieve double-digit growth there, amongst others by capturing the Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMO) opportunity in Early Life Nutrition because China is the biggest infant market in the world. The same goes for our advanced lifesaving biomaterials, especially in the cardiovascular market. We want to be present in one of the largest human populations on the planet, where we can have a big impact on humanity. We also want to expand our Pharma portfolio in the region, growing our share of lipids and premix across segments, and driving the international expansion of Biomedical.
Must-win priority 3
Leading on premix
In premix we want to move more from being a product provider to becoming a health benefit solutions provider. We develop solutions that include not only DSM ingredients, but partner ingredients that can bring true value to our customers, consumers and patients by understanding the health benefits they need and creating customized solutions to reach the markets that they serve. We’re going to provide our customers with a premix that consists of a tailored blend of ingredients to deliver on a specific health and wellbeing benefit. This intensive partnership makes it easier for them to manufacture an end product. Besides this, in specific markets, it’s a prerequisite to have cost effective tailored premix solutions.
Must-win priority 4
Scaling market-ready solutions profitably
We have services that can help determine if a product is successful, conducting consumer market research and helping our customers to truly create a value added solution. With scaling market-ready solutions profitably it’s essential to become a true partner to our customers, with a prerequisite that in specific markets it’s very important to have cost effectiveness top of mind. The biggest advantage is that customers don’t need to work with a manufacturing partner anymore, because we take care of that for them. We are going to design the premix and also take care of the manufacturing, whether it’s inhouse or with a third party partner. This way we go an extra mile, delivering our solutions straight to the customer in every format he wants, ready to take them to the market.
Must-win priority 5
Serving consumers directly
Our business-to-consumer i-Health business is home to category-leading brands in microbiome/probiotics and women’s health. These brands, and the generations of teams developing them, played a critical role in shaping the categories in which they compete by bringing science and solutions that fulfilled unmet consumer needs. We hold leading market share positions in the US and have started building our footprint in China, APAC, LATAM and Europe. We aim to empower self-care for all by deepening our connections with consumers via direct commerce and partnerships with healthcare professionals, entering promising new countries where our brands can have an impact, and continuously seeking opportunities to discover, define and innovate in unchartered and underserved health spaces across the globe. This will allow us to double the size of our i-Health business by 2025.
Must-win priority 6
Delivering personalized nutrition & care
Our health tech company Hologram Sciences creates brands targeting various health conditions. Our passion for helping people achieve their unique goals drives us to innovate relentlessly. By combining health diagnostics, digital coaching and truly personalized nutrition & care these brands will directly provide consumers with more holistic solutions to manage their health and wellbeing. A good example is consumers using a personalized diagnostic to measure their vitamin D level. When there’s a vitamin D deficiency, they receive the desired supply of vitamin D to close the gap and improve immunity and bone health. The next step is to work with tailored recipes combining micronutrients to address specific health benefits, making sure a consumer receives a unique, personalized solution. We want to grow in this area with further expansion in for instance women’s health, healthy aging and sports performance.
Enabler 1
End-to-end customer delivery
Reliability of delivery and ensuring the quality of our products is critical for customers, especially in segments like Early Life Nutrition, Nutrition Improvement, Medical Nutrition and Pharma. It needs to be right every time. This is about providing customers with health benefit solutions that are essential for people’s health and wellbeing. We therefore have a huge responsibility to make sure our products are delivered on time. Asset-wise we want to be fit for growth. We want to deliver on our promise end-to-end. We basically want to have the right production lines and a supply chain excellence, supported by end-to-end digitization. So that’s what we are going to focus on in the coming years.
Enabler 2
Innovation to market
Our strength is that we have many visionary scientists who see lots of opportunities for innovation, driven by our increasing investment to better understand consumer needs. What we have not been doing well enough is successfully bringing those consumer needs-backed innovations to the market. How come? Basically, because we operated very siloed. Good innovation always comes through radical collaboration. The biggest challenge is to make the bridge between the legacy of DSM, which is about visionary science and a strong innovation mindset, and really being world-class in the markets we serve. As HNC, we want to offer health benefits and health solutions across all stages of life. Both sides of the spectrum should be integrated in our ways of working. It’s also urgent that we significantly improve our voice of the customer to increase our success rate in launching solutions that the market wants and needs at a price they can afford. Besides that, we want to connect with the business and the regions. We have the basis to do so, we just have to start delivering on it with discipline, focus and purpose.
Enabler 3
People & Culture
People are our greatest asset. They bring our strategy to life. Our workplace must be an engaging place where employees feel motivated to embrace, live and project our purpose. We like them to own their personal contribution, reflecting on and understanding the societal issues we try to overcome. How we can impact people, nature, planet and society. This also includes how we care for each other within HNC, how we collaborate internally and how we design a courageous organization where risk taking and failing is rewarded rather than penalized. We empower our people by creating an environment where they feel they are forever learning, developing and growing together, and we unleash their potential through culture and purpose. A contemporary workplace for all that attracts and retains talent. That’s about health and wellbeing. About bringing the best of ourselves. Being resilient, having fun, enjoying life and celebrating successes.
2025: Health for people, health for planet, healthy livelihoods
Today, we are a 2.4 billion euro global leader in Health, Nutrition & Care, serving consumers globally across ten segments: Early Life Nutrition, Dietary Supplements, i-Health, Pharma, Medical Nutrition, Nutrition Improvement, Personalized Nutrition, Personal Care, Aroma, and Biomedical.
2025: Health for people, health for planet, healthy livelihoods
To create brighter lives for all and touch people’s lives every day, we need growth. Our ambition is to realize 3.5 billion euro by 2025. Growth starts, however, with happy employees and happy customers, and that is why we have put ambitious targets for employee engagement and customer satisfaction first: an EES above 76% for all businesses and an NPS above 60 for all businesses.
That’s challenging, but we strongly believe we can deliver on this ambition because we all want to make an everlasting impact on people, nature, planet and society. That’s what we strive for as HNC. Because in the end, it’s about the impact we create for the world. By enabling the pursuit of every person’s full potential across all stages of life, we maximize their positive contribution to the world through prevention and restoration. That’s why we made firm commitments to improve people, planet and livelihoods by 2030 across DSM. At HNC we committed to help close the micronutrient gap for 800 million vulnerable people and to reach 500 million people with immunity supporting products.