Top
-line
growth
10. Chief Executive's statement
announced during the year - is actively participating
in the beer industry consolidation. It is this balance
between challenge and opportunity that led me, in
my first three months as Chairman/CEO, to set out
four priorities for action.
The first of these is to accelerate sustainable
top-line growth. While we have grown our brands,
we are not achieving the growth rates of the past,
so we need to improve. We will continue to build
our global portfolio based around the Heineken
brand and supported by strong, relevant regional
and local portfolios; we will further improve our
focus on execution, particularly in the on-trade.
At the beginning of 2005 we announced that we
would invest an additional €100 million behind
high impact marketing and innovation initiatives;
this in helping us to maintain leadership of the
industry in consumer-led innovation.
In this respect, 2005 was an important year for
us. We launched DraughtKeg, the portable draught
beer system, which allows consumers to experience
a premium quality draught beer at virtually any
drinking occasion. We see a genuine opportunity
for this innovation to deliver strong, incremental,
volume growth. It was also an important year for
BeerTender. In the year under review we passed
sales of 150,000 units and three million kegs in
the Netherlands and we launched BeerTender in
Austria in October. Our innovation initiatives will
contribute to growth in our revenue for the years
to come.
Priorities for improvements
We are working hard to minimise the cost
of production and maximise the amount
of cash available for investment. Heineken's
Total Productive Management programme
is helping to make this happen. Our Hunt
for Cash programme will continue to
deliver additional cash flow.
