Commendable growth
Hans Essaadi leaves Heineken Malaysia in good shape
WHEN Hans Essaadi was appointed managing director of Heineken Malaysia Bhd (formerly Guinness Anchor Bhd) back in March 2013, he had a legacy to match up to.
His predecessor Charles Ireland, who helmed the company for nearly six years, had steered Heineken Malaysia’s growth trajectory with consecutive revenue, profit, and volume growth.
Revenue growth from financial years 2006 (FY06) to FY13 was up 71.8% at RM1.68bil and Heineken Malaysia’s share price soared fourfold to RM14.13 during that period.
All eyes were on Essaadi to see how he would fare.
Today, as he hands over the baton to successor Roland Bala, Heineken Malaysia’s financial results and share price growth under Essaadi’s stewardship speaks for itself.
Essaadi navigated Heineken Malaysia through the stormy waters that were new ownership structure, corporate rebranding exercise, increased competition and an excise duty hike.
Despite that and in the face of economic and political uncertainties, Essaadi raised the bar to achieve commendable growth.
The group’s topline increased by 15% to RM1.93bil (in FY17) and net profit by 24% to RM270.22mil over the past five years.
The yardstick is, however, the share price performance. From March 2013 until August 30, 2018, Heineken Malaysia’s share price rose 56% to RM22.16.
Another prominent move by Essaadi was the heightened focus on innovation, resulting in an expansion of product portfolio.
Over the past five years, Heineken Malaysia introduced new brands and variants including Tiger White, Tiger Radler, Guinness Bright, Strongbow variants, Apple Fox Cider, Anchor Smooth Draught, Smirnoff Ice, and Kirin Ichiban.
Essaadi was instrumental in the push for innovation through the adoption of a consumer-inspired approach.
“We continuously spark new conversations and be a source of inspiration that represents the desires of our consumers.
“We are proud of our winning portfolio of inspirational brands and will continue delivering world-class campaigns and truly great experiences,” he tells StarBizWeek.
Essaadi believes that Heineken Malaysia’s focus on innovation will continue be a growth driver, having laid the foundation beyond beer and derived encouraging results in cider as well as low and no alcohol categories.
While contraband beer is a challenging issue which requires concerted multi-agency initiatives to overcome, Essaadi notes that there has been some positives over the past few years, particularly in East Malaysia.
Malaysia ranks second highest in the world for excise rate on beers, creating a demand for contraband products.
“We thank the Royal Malaysian Customs for their efforts and we commit to continue working closely with the Government through a holistic approach that includes enforcement as well as awareness and education programmes for government officers, our trade partners, and consumers,” he says.
Essaadi notes that the past five years was also highly significant as the group became fully part of Heineken’s global group in late 2015.
He attributes the achieved greater operational and cost efficiencies to his team, who worked hard on the integration journey with Heineken in 2015 and 2016.
“Through this integration, we are able to leverage on our global systems, tools and processes to unlock greater operational and cost efficiencies.
“We have also improved our focus on growing our talents through various development opportunities in the Asia Pacific region as well as learning from best practices globally,” Essaadi says.
Apart from that, Heineken Malaysia achieved significant milestones in sustaina- bility goals and human capital development initiatives under Essaadi’s leadership.
The group has reduced its water consumption (per hectoliter of beer brewed) by 16.2% since 2014 and identified ways to use electricity and thermal energy more efficiently, resulting in a 14.4% reduction in CO2 emissions since 2014.
“In terms of people development, we now have more structured programmes to give our people the exposure and experience they need to accelerate their careers and develop leadership skills. Through the Heineken Asia Pacific Graduate Programme (APGP), we have the ability to attract, recruit and develop the best graduates in Malaysia and provide them with a structured 24-month programme that includes international assignments as well as mentoring and coaching from senior leaders in the Asia-Pacific region.
“For our existing employees, there are also opportunities for Short Term Assignments (STA) in other countries in the region.
“We are proud to note that Heineken Malaysia is the largest contributor in both inbound and outbound STAs,” Essaadi elaborates.
Going forward, Essaadi reveals that automation and digitalisation will be key growth areas for Heineken Malaysia.
“Our route to market will transform, alongside shifts in the consumer market, which is evolving quickly from traditional channels from modern ones and from offline to online.
“To ensure we are at the forefront of these changes, leveraging on technology shall enable us to accelerate efficiencies across our value chain,” he says.
Roland Bala, who hails from Sarawak, will take over the helm of Heineken Malaysia today.
He will be the first Malaysian managing director of the group.
While Roland has large shoes to fill, he is equipped with an impressive track record, having increased Cambodia Brewery Ltd (CBL)’s market share by more than double since February 2012, and in turn established CBL as the market leader in Cambodia.
CBL is Heineken’s operating company in Cambodia.
“Roland has delivered excellent results for Heineken’s business in Cambodia, transforming the business to achieve market leadership over the past few years.
“I am confident I am leaving Heineken Malaysia in a good pair of hands, and I am sure he will truly enjoy working with the great team of employees we have in the company,” says Essaadi.
Essaadi’s next course has been set for Egypt, where he will take up the position of managing director of Heineken Egypt.
“It has been an honour and privilege for me to lead Heineken Malaysia for the past five years and I am proud of the great achievements the people at Heineken Malaysia have achieved as team.
“Together with our great team of employees and our business partners, the journey has been immensely meaningful.
“I wish to take this opportunity to express sincere appreciation to the Board of Directors for their guidance, my fellow Management Team members for their dedication and commitment, and all our employees for sharing a passion for winning.
“To our distributors and trade partners, thank you for the support and cooperation in enabling us to win in the marketplace together,” he says.