Column CEO Dirk Lodewijk: "It is not that difficult to innovate differently."
"Guts, commitment and a good look at your target group: innovating is not that difficult. It's a matter of looking closely at your target group and working on the basis of consumer trends. This is quite different from working with large volumes and cost leadership as a strategy, which many of our competitors do. We have been doing things differently for years, even though we are a supplier of ingredients.
Over the past 175 years, we have adapted time and again to the environment in which we operate. And we have dared to innovate. Can you imagine? We started as a mill, focused on animal feed and later on consumer products. Yet a few years ago we decided to radically revise our innovation strategy. We knew that there was even more potential in grain.
We used to work on the basis of technological knowledge. We developed and launched new products on a regular basis, but it was shooting with hail. With a bit of luck a product launch was successful, but much more often it was a costly, complex and time-consuming process that did not always pay off.
Develop products that have real proven added value for your customers
Now we are shaping innovation based on customer intimacy, we are doing extensive research into consumer trends and we are therefore much more market-driven. For example, we develop products and semi-finished products that have real proven added value for our customers.
In 2016, we opened the doors of the KIEM Innovation Centre. A major investment and bold move, because there were already similar application centres in the country. Nevertheless, we felt it was necessary to create a physical space to innovate and co-create with our customers. Customers came to us naturally with their idea, a new concept or a problem they ran into and said: "Help me out". By combining knowledge, technology and co-creation with customers, we can, for example, develop prototypes, improve recipes or achieve a loss reduction in a factory. In addition, 'purely from the origin' is the guiding principle in everything we do.
This way of working, i.e. innovating differently, requires serious commitment. You need the right people for it. It is essential that everyone in the organisation understands that we have to do it together. This means that marketing, sales, innovation and operations cannot function as separate islands, but learn to act together and look at the market through the same lens. That works better and better.
In addition, a substantial budget must be made available. After all, the costs come before the benefits. This is not usual in a market like ours. So it takes a lot of guts. And a firm belief in the route we have chosen. I am convinced that this is the right route for our company. In fact, to ensure that Royal Koopmans still exists in 100 years' time, innovation is the only way to remain distinctive and relevant.