The 20-30% annual growth paces will soon be history for the Romanian FMCG market, as well as for Paul Nuber, the manager who stepped up Nestle's growth in Romania in the past six years and who is now about to leave for Nestle headquarters in Lausanne (Switzerland).
The 44-year old Swiss says in an interview with ZF that taking over the management of Nestle's Super Premium/Luxury is a step ahead in his career and a new challenge for him. He will leave Romania at the end of February.
In Romania, Nuber has managed to turn Nestle's Romanian operations profitable and boost turnover almost five times in the past five years.
Thus, from a figure of 40m euros in 2003, Paul Nuber drove the company's Romanian turnover to 170-200m euros in 2008, according to ZF estimates. When Nuber arrived in Romania, Nestle's business plan targeted 2008 turnover worth around 100m euros for this country. This threshold was reached in 2006. "When I said we'd triple sales in Romania, everybody thought I was crazy," Nuber remembers.
"One of the explanations for the rapid turnover increase in Rumania was the fact that we had to recover what we'd lost, in the wake of some mistakes about which I cannot say anything more," he specifies.
What was he counting on when he came to Romania?
"Even before arriving in Romania I had anticipated the market would undergo a major transformation and that the development of modern trade would be an opportunity for us. The growth pace of the market was impossible to foresee at that time," the manager says.
The weight of international key accounts in Nestle Romania's sales rose by a smaller percentage, from 27 to 35%, according to company data.
"We had two options: either to bet on one of the two formats, modern or traditional retail, or rely on partnerships with everybody. We pursued the strategy of having our products on all the shelves, available to anybody and anywhere, which I believe has helped us gain our customers' loyalty," Nuber explains.
Nuber's departure comes at a time when the trend is changing on the market. 2009 is the first year when producers are no longer speaking of explosive growth, but of cost cuts. Another expat manager, Jacques Reber, will take the helm of Nestle Romania.
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