Asahi International
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Leadership
Premium Global Brands A
sahi International has an enviable portfolio of premium beer brands under its wing and during these unprecedented times of the covid-19 pandemic has shown remarkable resilience and adaptability to adjust to the ‘new normal’. Rohan Cummings Asahi International CFO talks about how this global business has adapted to the challenges, and on a lighter note discusses business away from covid, such as how the CFO function has evolved. Rohan what effect has covid had on your business? Covid19 is a global humanitarian challenge with significant economic and social implications moving at unprecedented speed. These 4 considerations are factored in to our response plans and support for the health professionals working tirelessly to fight it, for the families of our employees and the communities within which we operate and for our business across its full value
chain. Covid19 has had a major impact on operations and on demand in our territories and will continue to do so for the foreseeable short to mid-term. That said, we were pleased to accomplish that during lockdown periods, all our breweries were in operation and all our businesses are showing amazing resilience and flexibility in adjusting to new realities often on a day to day basis. At the outset of COVID-19 we set out three business priorities: • The health and safety of our people, their families, our customers, shoppers, consumers, and those in the communities in which we operate are our first and paramount concern. • The continuity of the business through this moment of crisis – keeping our business running. This is good for our shareholders but also for the people and the economies of the markets we serve.
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Rohan Cummings 3
Leadership • Understanding future opportunities as they become apparent. This time of disruption of “normality” is an opportunity for us to learn new ways of working and plan for a better future as new category, channel and shopper behaviours evolve. Our resolve is to embrace that future proactively, with curiosity and openness and with premium growth in mind. In all our operations, remote working introduced for roles where it is possible, increased hygiene measures communicated and introduced immediately following public health guidance. We were able to continue production and distribution thanks to our teams’ agility and dedication to find solutions in the unprecedented time of lockdown measures being in place. We were working actively with customers and suppliers to ensure both the availability of our brands but also, as far as possible, to provide support for the sustainability of their businesses too. As on-trade customers were facing no or reduced demand due to lockdown or social-distancing advice, we started to offer customer support package (credit, return of cask/keg) and shifted our SKU offer to bottles and cans. We met with increasing demand of our off-trade customers, however supermarket and shop environment remained volatile and dependent on the ability of retailers to appropriately restock shelves in the initial phase of lockdown measures. The biggest impact on our business is how long the restrictions and various measures continue and how long the trade takes to recover to experience what the
new normal looks like. I continue to be impressed at how our teams and business units have seized new opportunities, for example, the Nectar Wholesale team were quick to respond and started delivering to the Off Trade and takeaway/delivery businesses to ensure they could continue to operate as well as putting into place a Click & Collect service for consumers local to their depot, they’re also currently working up a home delivery solution. Your operations and industry like others will now have to operate in ‘a new normal’. How do you foresee the coming 6-9 months? Our preparation and focus from a financial perspective for the future has two key parts, to preserve cash and to ensure we invest in the appropriate activities to come out of this pandemic as a stronger company. We need to adjust to the new commercial environment and continually forecast plan using various scenarios. My favourite old African proverb is, “For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” and this could not be more true today in our company. Prior to covid-19 Asahi International has gone from strength to strength acquiring brands and developing partnerships. What is the mission for Asahi? Our mission is to bring more fun to life through people, partners, and our high-quality world-class beer brands around the globe. We do this through an aspirational portfolio of leading super premium beer, ale, craft lager and cider
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brands which include Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Asahi Super Dry, Grolsch, Pilsner Urquell, Kozel, Meantime, Fuller’s London Pride and Cornish Orchards. By deploying engaging marketing activities and premium execution, we deliver value to the category and aim to change the way people think about beer. With an ever-expanding portfolio across the UK & Europe there has recently been a rebrand from Asahi Europe to Asahi International. What is the rationale behind this and has the change in name created a change in structure? The change from Asahi Europe Ltd to Asahi International Ltd in January
2020 was driven by the vision to drive the International presence of Asahi with our unrivalled beer brands, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Asahi Super Dry and Grolsch to strengthen our position as a global premium beer powerhouse. By leveraging our people, our processes, and our systems on a wider scale we can accelerate the growth of our aspirational portfolio and deliver exceptional and authentic, quality beer to even more beer lovers worldwide. As Chief Financial Officer of what are your main responsibilities and how is the function structured? I am responsible for Finance, Treasury, Tax, Legal, Information Systems, Procurement,
Innserve are the leading provider of technical services to the on-trade in the UK, offering draught beer, wine, soft drinks and refrigeration expertise. With quality at the heart of everything we do, our services cover the full breadth of support, from a state of the art Customer Service Centre, through our Engineering Test Facilities to our fully comprehensive Supply Chain and Equipment Purchasing teams all supported by our internally designed and built IT solutions. We are very proud of our operational performance and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been fully operational to provide seamless service to our customers
www.innserveltd.co.uk Innserve Ltd, The Old Maltings, Tadcaster, LS24 9HB Telephone: 01937 535000 5
Leadership Internal Audit and Risk Management for Asahi International Ltd. I work across multiple geographies and support commercial operations across United Kingdom, France, USA, Canada, China, Taiwan, South-Korea to Latin America and South-East Asia. My core responsibility is to drive delivery of best practice so the vision of each business can be achieved, commercial knowhow is shared, and these principles can be translated so each business is run to its maximum potential. You have direct responsibility and oversight of numerous areas within the business asides from the basics of financial reporting. Given your extensive career how would you say the role has changed and what would you point to as the primary factors for this change? A CFO is a steward for the long term and as any business matures, it brings fresh challenges, demands and opportunities so my role has grown to incorporate new businesses, new cultures, new economic situations and in that I am constantly learning and developing. 2019 was a pivotal period for the business as the acquisition of the beverage, brewing and distribution business of Fuller, Smith & Turner PLC resulted in the growth of our UK production facilities, whilst bringing new cider and ale brands to the Super Premium Portfolio and collating a work-force of over 1,300 employees – all these elements have driven a significant difference to day to day responsibilities across my teams. As well as a new-look portfolio and packaging mix, we have a whole new network within
the UK including a range of operations, facilities, and distribution opportunities. This naturally brings added complexity to the finance function, but it is also a huge opportunity and makes it an exciting time to be in this role. As previously mentioned, the international aspect of the business and the fact that the organisation’s growth has been partly achieved via acquisitions means that the business
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is often in a flux of transition. What challenges does the legacy of acquiring businesses and the international nature of the business create? We are an international business based around the core strength of our international brands. They have been incredibly good in really driving performance and this edge puts us in a strong position to compete in the premium beer category in the markets. Change and evolution is quite constant, but it is natural for a business like ours, and we
will always approach with positivity both the challenges and opportunities that this brings. CFOs are expected to be the change agents, which means that they must be motivational, inspirational, and they have to lead by example and be cross-functional. Today’s CFO is significantly focused on driving transformation becoming the business partner of choice within the organisation. How important has embracing technology and driving 7
Leadership digitised and automated processes become to a business such as Asahi and a modern CFO like yourself The CFO role is undergoing perhaps its greatest change in recent history, where operating as effectively as possible requires a more business-wide leadership role and the adaptability to keep up with the pace of change. Traditionally, there were three fundamental tasks: the books & records of the company, financial reporting, and statutory compliance. Today’s CFO is fundamentally different from the CFO of yesteryear and has to take a lead in driving the direction of the organisation - work handin-hand with everyone from the CEO to the Category Analyst to ensure mission critical tasks are delivered whilst interpreting the market and predicting future trends. The “older” set of tasks continue to be mission critical but are now minimum requirements for any CFO. Sustainability is a topic that all leaders within the business share responsibility and with numerous examples throughout your industry of sustainable initiatives and practices can you offer an insight into Asahi’s sustainability drive? We rely on natural resources to create our world-class beers: water, agricultural crops, and a variety of energy sources. To thrive in the long term, both our business and our communities rely on the availability and quality of these resources. This is why the sustainability of our business, on people, on the planet and on society is so important. It is central overall strategy for growth, and we have ambitious targets and a broad range of
initiatives in place to innovate in this space. Thanks to the partnerships signed between Birra Peroni, Saplo Malting Plant, CREA (National Research center for Agriculture) and the Agriculture Departments of 6 Universities in Italy, Campus Peroni promotes training and innovation based on two key pillars of beer quality: sustainable cultivation of beer barley and 100% Italian Malt. The students of 6 universities have the opportunity to follow a path with focus on beer barley cultivation and
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100% renewable electricity generated by European windmills - a great example of our carbon reduction programme. A key focus at the Fuller’s Griffin Brewery in Chiswick has been to reduce water consumption, where we have made some significant improvements, and to re-direct waste material as well as by products from the brewing process – for example with our ‘spent’ barely being converted into animal feed and distributed to local farms. Beyond our passion for beer and cider, making and building great brands, we are committed to doing business in the right way. We want to continue bringing our brands to consumers for generations to come, so it is crucial we do so in a way that is responsible and considerate to the world around us.
sustainability. The farmers of our supply chain have become tutors, guiding the students in learning techniques and models of the cultivation process, malting process, and management of a modern farm. The final goal is to produce in Europe a natural fertiliser, made of beer yeast cells which can help grow better barley for a better beer while keeping the nature in better shape. In January 2020, The Grolsch brewery in Enschede, Netherlands, moved to using
Driving sustainability and creating value in an extremely competitive sector would not be possible without strategic relations with key suppliers. How important are strategic supplier relations for future prosperity and are their opportunities for businesses to partner/innovate with Asahi? We expect all partners we work with to share the same values as we do in relation to ensuring a positive environmental and social impact. For example, sustainability is always a consideration in the process of procurement, where we consciously and deliberately look for supplier programmes that may help to reduce our CO2 footprint, improve recycling rates, reduce wastage, increase recycled content and aid our transition to greener energy. Strong supplier relationships as 9
Leadership mentioned are vital but vitally important is the ability for business like yours to be able to transform and adapt. This is only possible if the structure and culture fit together to nurture talent and allow for true expression from the workforce. How easy is it to obtain, retain and nurture talent? Do you feel that given the perceived lack of technology and innovation within the sector that the career proposition within the organisation or industry is maybe not as appealing to the masses as opposed to other industries? Transformation is coming towards businesses at an ever-more rapidly accelerating pace. In the past, gamechangers were mainly brought to the market through developments owned by larger corporations. Currently, more and more start-ups and small-sized companies bring disruption to the scene, especially through the industry 4.0 platforms. It demands the same agility from our people in the business to recognise, evaluate, embrace, and incorporate them into our working environment. Our teams are composed out of skilled, adaptive people that reflect our premium brands that come with up-to-date strong image. For example, when Asahi International installed bots to facilitate invoice processing, the service centre as well as our IS/IT department were impacted significantly and went through a steep learning curve. It demanded adaptation and persistency of the teams. Over time the recognition of the added value grew and flourished while the larger part of the organisation and none of our consumers notice the implementation of this disruptive technology.
As a CFO you must always have an eye on what tomorrow could bring. How in an industry where often external factors play a significant factor can you plan for tomorrows challenges? What do you see as the short-term challenges? We remain focused on our own business vision, our mission, values and ambition for growth, and all the related factors that are within our control - whilst staying highly tuned in to the world around us and conducting the appropriate analysis and scenario planning to prepare for potential future eventualities.
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As well as challenges there are many opportunities. What are the longterm ambitions/opportunities for the business? As mentioned, the CFO role is somewhat unrecognisable to how it looked when you started. Where do you see the role going in the future? OR Given your vast experience, how would you say the role has changed over the years? I see the CFO roles of the future being a key custodian of long-term value creation and ensuring the business is set up to
sustainably grow and deliver for the long term. The overarching mission that drives everything we is our ambition to become a global premium beer powerhouse. We will focus on delivering on our premium credentials in all that we do -through our products and services, the experiences we create and the way we do business. Our focus will be on driving growth across our categories and regions, and importantly we will look to so do in the right way, making a positive contribution across all the areas we operate. 11
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