The achievements and the challenges throughout the previous strategy period have played a critical part in designing the next strategy with prioritisation, consumer-centricity and simplification being key words. We will invest in opportunities where we have the right to win, and continue to invest in people, data, digitalisation and business analytics to support our ambitions.
Ultimately, we will sharpen our focus and raise execution.
Our next five-year strategy, FOCUS2030 builds on the achievements and learnings from the former strategy and constitutes the next step in delivering on our purpose To Craft The Rituals That Make Us More and to move towards our vision to be the undisputed and sustainable leader in cigars.
OUR STRATEGIC PRIORITIES
STABILISE MACHINE-ROLLED CIGARS
As the European market leader in machine-rolled cigars, we are focused on protecting our strongholds while building market share in the segments that are growing or declining less than the total market. We will work towards the stablisation of our new ERP system and the normalisation of our supply, which will help to improve market shares across key areas in Europe. We will implement a significant portfolio simplification and concentrate our efforts around four Power Brands. This will enable our supply chain to contain cost increases and actively work with a better pricing structure to support margin protection. The Power Brand approach will allow us to simplify our brand portfolio, formats, SKUs and blends, all based off deep consumer insights. The Power Brands are Signature, Mehari's, La Paz and Panter.
GROW HANDMADE CIGARS
We aim to accelerate the growth by focusing our efforts on simplifying our portfolio and streamlining our ways of working. The creation of the Power Brands will focus on building these up to be larger and even more relevant for consumers. We aim to market our own brands higher than others across the controlled sales channels and subject to continued strong performance in our own retail stores, we will continue to add new stores to our already strong network. We will leverage our existing distribution strength for a unified approach. The Power Brands are Macanudo, CAO, Cohiba and Alec Bradley
ACCELERATE NICOTINE POUCH BUSINESS
As consumers increasingly become multi-category users, nicotine pouches are a intentional product addition to our portfolio. This category broadens our consumer exposure and supports our long-term growth aspirations to meet consumer demands as the cigarette category declines with nicotine pouches taking a natural replacement. We aim to expand market share for our brand XQS, in our two focus markets, Sweden and UK (reaching 20% and at least 5% respectively). We will invest in building up our research and development capabilities in the mint segment, which will allow us to contend in what is still the dominant segment of the nicotine pouch market and will protect us against potential flavour regulations. The Power Brand for nicotine pouches is XQS.
