Our strategy
We deliver shareholder value by being a leading speciality ingredient company, driving sustainable innovation, superior performance and creating value for our customers and consumers.
Smart science to improve lives™
Deliver consistent top and bottom line growth
Innovation is the lifeblood of our business, playing a key role in delivering sales and profit growth. Through our technical and commercial expertise, our focus is to increase the sales of new and protected products (NPP).
We achieve this through:
- Our unrivalled local direct selling capability
- A balanced global footprint
- Accelerating sales in our core markets
- A disciplined approach to capital allocation
- Investing in high return opportunities.
- Despite subdued market conditions, we delivered a resilient performance with a robust profit margin
- Delivered cost savings to enhance efficiency and reinvested in new roles to drive future growth
- Delivered strong cash conversion
- Returned capital to shareholders
- Continued to invest in projects to deliver future growth including the biosurfactant plant and speciality excipients plants in North America.
- Strengthen to grow Personal Care
- Expand to grow Life Sciences
- Refine to grow Performance Technologies
- Further capacity expansion for speciality excipients, new polymer additive products and botanical ingredients.
Increase the proportion of protected innovation
Through our powerful business model we connect to fast growing markets to grow profit ahead of sales, ahead of volume.
We achieve this through:
- Investing in our own R&D
- Expanding the number of regional innovation centres
- Working closely with customers to better understand their specific needs
- Identifying disruptive technologies
- Working with external, Open Innovation partners and universities
- Innovation pipeline remained healthy with recent technology acquisitions made good progress during the year offering exciting future opportunities, with IonPhasE moving into profit
- Acquired Rewitec, creating a new range of lubricant additives to extend the life of wind turbines
- Expanded our digital programme across our business model, developing knowledge sharing, engaging customers through ‘live chat’ and using in-silico modelling to develop new products
- Working with external Open Innovation partners
Our priorities for 2020:
- Upgrade innovation centres in Shanghai and USA enabling us to work more closely with local and global customers
- Replace traditional petrochemical surfactants with our ECO range of bio-based products particularly for personal and home care applications
- Continue to invest in our digital programme
Accelerate our customers’ transition to sustainable ingredients
Sustainability connects all aspects of our business. Building on our bio-based raw material heritage, we are evolving our products, technologies and supply chain to meet customer and consumer needs.
We achieve this through:
- Creating ingredients that provide a benefit in use with reduced environmental impact
- Aligning our business with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
What we have done in 2019:
- Developed our Purpose, Smart Science to Improve LivesTM and a Commitment that by 2030 we will be Climate, Land and People Positive
- Developed stretching 2030 KPIs, aligned with the SDGs
- Created an Executive position of President of Sustainability to deliver our Commitment to become the most sustainable supplier of innovative ingredients
- For the first time in our history we achieved two consecutive months free of any recordable injuries and met our 2020 target a year early
Our priorities in 2020:
- Continue to increase the positive impact of our actions and deliver benefits for our customers and consumers
- Reduce the negative impacts of our actions on our fragile world