In his first visit to Henkel's Romanian offices, Kasper Rorsted,the CEO of the German company with 13.5bn-euro turnover globally,talked about the aggressive strategy the Romanian subsidiary reliedon last year to counter falling consumption and about marketpolarisation. "Weak brands will cease to exist," he says. Newproduct launches on the market was the offensive strategy HenkelRomania banked on in a year with plunging consumption. The companyhas for this year budgeted rising investments from 2009 and a 5-10%sales increase in RON. "Last year we played offensive and broughtnew products onto the market, which allowed us to offsetconsumption decline. The steps to boost cost structure efficiencyand efforts to keep our people motivated were also important,"states Rorsted. Henkel CEO counts on a rebound of the company'sRomanian turnover, after a year during which turnover contracted byaround 3% in RON from 2008. 2009 brought the first annual salesdecline for Henkel Romania of the 17 years it had operated on themarket. The company reported sales of 571m RON (135m euros) for2009, with the adhesive unit as its biggest division. "I expectRomania to continue to be a key-market for Henkel in CEE in thenext ten years. Romania is one of the markets where we haven't yetseen the full growth potential and it is more than a market: we cansee opportunities of a different nature here," Rorsted alsosays.
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