Strategic Choices
Our strategy is about proactively shaping the future and reacting deftly to changes in the environment around us. To guide our actions, we have made important strategic choices regarding ‘where to play’ and ‘how to win’.
Our ‘where to play’ choices define our operating model, the categories and markets where we compete, and how we prioritise. Our ‘how to win’ choices specify how we will outperform the competition in terms of capabilities and execution.
Our purpose, ‘where to play’ and ‘how to win’ choices, culture and Karo way of working constitute our competitive advantage, which clearly differentiates us from our competitors. These cornerstones include our 100% brand and consumer centricity, digital-first mindset and entrepreneurial and lean approach to business.
Where to Play:
Experts in everyday healthcare
Within the area of everyday healthcare, we specialise in offering a range of trusted, favourite products and new innovations while equipping consumers with important information and knowledge.
We have a strong brand and consumer-centric operating model that defines what role we play in the everyday healthcare value chain. Utilising our hands-on commercial execution expertise across various channels, we confidently navigate the landscape of everyday healthcare.
A house of brands focused on five attractive categories
We own and commercialise excellent, original brands that are quality assured and trusted by consumers. Our primary objective is to continually improve these brands and connect them with consumers across channels and markets.
We serve five categories within everyday healthcare:
01 Skin health
02 Intimate health
03 Digestive health
04 Foot health
05 Vitamin & Mineral Supplements (VMS)
Omnichannel player with hands-on commercial approach
To best deliver on our commitment to everyday healthcare, we ensure that our products are available wherever and whenever you prefer to shop. In today’s diverse marketplace, where consumers buy across channels and increasingly online, we’re dedicated to offering a seamless experience for all.
Our products can be found in traditional pharmacies, physical retail stores, and on e-commerce platforms. This includes expanding our presence on popular sites such as Amazon and other e-pharmacy platforms, making it convenient for consumers to access what they need. In certain cases, we also offer products directly to consumers through our own channels. We have in-house capabilities in digital content production, design and artwork, and have our own teams to execute and manage our Amazon and direct-to-consumer businesses both for account management and performance marketing.
How to Win:
To realise our long-term vision, we prioritise expanding consumer access to our product range through a combination of organic growth and value-driven acquisitions. To achieve this, Karo has identified five critical areas for cultivating distinctive capabilities. These capabilities not only advance our operational objectives but also shape our strategic direction.
01
Brand portfolio management and innovation based on consumer insights
The better we understand our consumers – from when they start researching a health problem and weighing up available options to when they decide which option to buy – the better we can respond with advice and relevant product solutions. We must differentiate Karo by being close to our consumers and their path to purchase, and by rapidly adjusting our content and brands to suit emerging consumer needs and by keeping our brands relevant.
02
Commercial execution engine based on in-house omnichannel capabilities
We must be present with our brands and products wherever and whenever people need us and attract consumers with the right content and creativity, customised to the specific channel at hand. As consumers rapidly grow more confident about making smart online choices for their everyday healthcare, our job is to make sure our brands and information are easy to find and that we can transact with consumers regardless of their preferred purchasing channel. That is why building our digital expertise and true omnichannel capabilities are major priorities.
03
Supply chain management based on a clearly defined operations playbook
Karo’s virtual operating model means we rely on partners, Contract Manufacturer Organisations (CMOs) for manufacturing, and third-party logistics (3PLs) for logistics. To ensure reliable supply, we need best-in-class planning tools and processes to enable agile supply, high service levels and good inventory management. We must continuously look at ways to optimise our network of CMOs and assign manufacturing tasks to the best suppliers.
04
Lean business operations, enabled by a fully digitised, scalable platform
Karo has invested heavily in digitalising of core processes and systems over recent years. This enables us to handle increasing levels of complexity as we grow without expanding our organisation and administration costs, to automate daily workflows, and to organise, extract and analyse data to help us optimise and automate flows. We can also add predictive tools and AI to improve the quality and speed of insights and decisions once we have high-quality master data in place. The Karo scalable platform enables us to operate the business in a much leaner and less people-intensive manner than many competitors.
05
Institutionalised M&A capabilities to access, transact and integrate acquisitions
Karo has executed a string of acquisitions that have supported our growth and geographical expansion while adding capabilities across core functions and key processes. We aim to pursue additional Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), particularly bolt-on brand and portfolio acquisitions, and exploit the track record and institutionalised capability platform that Karo has built to access and synergistically integrate acquisitions.