THE NATURE OF OUR BUSINESS – STABLE GROWTH - Symrise

We intend to meet our growth and profitability targets through the
consistent implementation of our strategy. This strategy is based
on three equally important pillars:
Focus on Innovation – “The Power of AND”
Symrise has set itself the objective of leveraging its ability to research
and develop new and innovative product concepts and
groups to further grow its market share in the high-quality, highmargin
product segment. We are therefore focusing on “AND”
products. “AND” products are innovative technologies or novel ingredients
that offer an added benefit. As these products have
unique features, they can help our customers open up interesting
growth markets. At the same time, these products enable our customers
to stand out from the competition. Typically, our “AND”
products are found in relatively fast-growing submarkets or trendy
segments. We therefore expect them to continue to drive
Symrise’s growth in the future.
Focus on Customer Needs – Being an Indispensable Partner
A sound understanding of our customers’ needs and of consumer
trends is the key to being an indispensable partner in the development,
manufacture and marketing of successful products. Consequently,
besides creating and producing flavors and fragrances
to outside specifications, we also approach customers proactively
to present new ideas and intelligent concepts. We aspire to offer
our customers increasing support at the end product development
stage with joint market and trend research and integrated research
and development work. By combining this with extremely high supply
reliability and outstanding competence in applying for regulatory
approval and in marketing products, Symrise could expand its
partnerships with its customers across the entire value chain.
Our strategic goal is to bolster our position on the core lists of important
multinational customers and to strengthen our presence in
the high-growth emerging markets by having a thorough understanding
of the needs of our customers and consumer trends, and
by cooperating closely with our customers on the development of
new products.
Being Bold
Going forward, Symrise will continue to pursue the measures it
has taken in recent years to improve and maintain its competitiveness
and profitability. To this end, Symrise has developed a
margin optimization program through which the profitability of our
customer relations, our products, and the areas of application of
our products are constantly monitored. We will immediately implement
corrective measures when necessary.
Through consistent implementation of our strategy we intend to
achieve growth rates making us the foremost company in our
industry.
Additionally, Symrise intends to broaden its technological expertise
by acquiring and integrating companies that possess special
know-how or innovative technologies. We are concentrating in particular
on small and medium-sized companies specializing in the
development and production of flavors and fragrances, natural raw
materials, neutraceuticals and nutritionals, and active cosmetic ingredients
and plant extracts. By becoming part of the Symrise
Group, these companies can gain access to new customer groups.
64 Annual Report 2008 Symrise AG