Introduction:
DSM is active worldwide in life science products, performance materials and industrial chemicals. DSM develops, produces and markets innovative products and services that are designed to raise the quality of life. DSM’s products are used in a wide range of end-use markets and applications, including human and animal nutrition and health, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, the automotive industry, coatings, the construction industry and the electrics & electronics market. DSM has annual sales of around € 8 billion, a net profit of around € 262 million and employs about 23,000 people worldwide. DSM is a leading world player in many of the markets in which it operates and has plants and facilities on every continent. The company’s head office is in the Netherlands. Over the last decades, DSM has shifted from being a bulk chemical producing company to a company that produces more specialized chemicals and life-science products.
DSM Food Specialties:
Food Specialties is one of DSM’s 14 divisions. It is a leading producer of value-added ingredient solutions. With 1,300 employees active in 28 locations worldwide, DSM Food Specialties is a truly global player. It has a knowledge-intensive base, founded on two main technologies - fermentation and enzyme technology. Food Specialties’ mission is to exploit this base to research, develop, manufacture and supply effective ingredient-based solutions for the international food, feed and beverage industries. Food Specialties is a B2B-company. In doing this, it aims to be recognized by customers as a reliable partner, supplying innovative products backed up by a high level of technical and application service.
Situation:
Every 4 to 5 years the strategy for each unit of DSM is defined by the Board. The division DSM Food Specialties is now ordered to concentrate on nutritional products that have to do with health. The market shows a substantial demand for these kinds of products, due to developments like the increasing number of people suffering from age-related health problems and an ever increasing percentage of people suffering from obesity. Food Specialties currently has no nutritional products focused on health available, and is faced with the task of starting ‘from scratch’.
10 areas in which nutrition and health meet were identified, and three were chosen to be important. Those three areas were chosen on the following criteria:
-relative importance (number of individuals likely to use the product involved)
- it must be possible to show that food helps fight the disease (and quickly) - the effect of the special diet must be measurable with biomarkers (such as the blood pressure, cholesterol level or others)
The three areas that met these criteria were: obesity, heart and vascular diseases and diabetes II (diabetes for the elderly). Also, Food Specialties is ordered to avoid developing products based on ‘hypes’, but rather to invest in products that are more likely to provide a stable turnover and profit. Besides the need for new products, existing products also need to be improved and updated. This is particularly of importance since the products presently on the market (Present Product Market Technology Combinations) provide the money that is required for the innovation of new products.
So there are two tasks for Food Specialties:
- improve existing products and their revenue (the innovation budget)
- develop new ideas and products