Potential
THE WORLD OF HEINEKEN
highly complex study that requires a lot of time and energy on the
part of both Heineken and the importer. Which is why an analysis
like this is not applied to just any market. "We only select the
markets that have growth potential," says Jacco van der Linden.
How do you decide whether a market offers potential for Heineken?
As the Export Managers explain, this is dependent on a number of
factors: a country's political and economic development,
the level of the import duties it applies and the interest shown by
local consumers for Western products. "Above all, it's the import
duties that are a factor to be reckoned with. The level of those duties
has an enormous impact on our results," admits Guido Janssen.
Heineken Export operates on the basis of three types of beer
markets: the trading market, the building market and the star
brand market. In the trading market Heineken does not as yet hold
a clear position and its potential is not visible (for the moment).
In a building market the potential exists, but Heineken's position
still has not been built. These markets in particular are suitable
for a Sources of Growth Analysis. In a star brand market both the
position and the potential of Heineken are clear and strongly
defined. Jacco van der Linden does not beat about the bush: "We
do not have a star brand market for Heineken in Africa. That will
still take some three to five years to achieve. But I have to admit
that until a couple of years ago all markets in Africa were only
trading markets, the simple reason being that we knew too little
about them."
The number of building markets is low: only three markets are
spontaneously mentioned as potentially strong: Nigeria, lie de la
Réunion and Gabon. According to Diederik Kalff and Guido Janssen,
markets like Tanzania, Egypt and Algeria are also moving towards
the status of building market. "But you shouldn't only look at the
volume. It's also a matter of how professionally the organisation
tackles things and the way in which they handle brand marketing."
