“We’re expanding into Europe!”, “First seaweed-based packaging to hit the shelves” and “Artificial and human intelligence in top form”. These could easily be some of the headlines among the Vetico updates in the years to come. The new management has made ambitious refinements to the company’s strategy.
Jeroen van Herpen (CEO), Bob de Nijs (CFO) and Mark van der Burgt (CCO) have been working together as the Board of Directors since 1 January this year. Prior to the change in leadership, they had been working on a strategic plan for 2030. “Our focus in this is primarily outward: what does the market want from us?” says Mark. “There are a variety of developments ahead of us in areas such as sustainability, customer needs and the labor market. We can wait for those issues to have an impact on us, but we can also make conscious decisions now. We’re going for the latter approach.”
with both feet firmly planted on the ground.”
New energy
“That doesn’t mean everything will change,” adds Jeroen. “As always, we are an ambitious family business with both feet firmly planted on the ground. But we also continue our efforts to professionalize. This will help us to stay as agile in the future as we have been for the past 27 years, for both larger and smaller clients. As our founder Arno van de Ven once said: ‘I make way for new energy.’ That’s the most important change. As the new Board, that energy is coming from us, and we’re putting that to use for our next step.”
“Vetico of the future”
An important guiding principle for the 2030 plan is to have a solid foundation in areas such as team & culture, commerce, safety, quality and processes & knowledge. “Based on that, we will be investing in our four pillars: the generation, the knowledge, the factory, and future growth,” says Bob. “This will enable us to build the Vetico of the future.”
to facilitate our customers’ wishes”
“We want to provide a sense of home for our loyal employees, and to be even stronger as a knowledge partner for all of our clients, large and small,” our CFO continues. “And we want to have climate-neutral factories that make us even more productive and flexible. Our dream is simply to be able to facilitate our customers’ wishes. Thanks to our modular lines, that should be both possible and cost-effective.”
Organic growth and expansion through acquisitions
We expect to continue our organic growth by investing in people, knowledge and technology. “We’re also going to pursue growth by means of acquisitions,” says Mark. “We believe we have the opportunity to further develop our role as a ‘one-stop shop’ partner in Europe, in the same way we’ve done in England, Germany and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Netherlands, of course. We’ve already had some good discussions in other countries. Our aim is to accelerate our growth a little bit more so we can continue to invest in areas such as knowledge, innovation and automation. We also want to be even less vulnerable to our top brands so that they can continue to grow with us, while new brands can more easily join us.”
to be our strength in the future.”
Together
Jeroen, Bob and Mark have therefore turned their gaze outward for the revised strategy. However, that has not been their sole focus; they have also turned their attention inward. Jeroen: “Naturally we would like to maintain control ourselves, but we believe that collaborating with our employees and clients is equally important. That’s why we also share our strategy when participating in various discussions, and we listen carefully to the opinions of others.”
“And we will continue to do so,” concludes Mark. “After all, the only constant is that the world around us is continually changing, and that’s only going to accelerate. We want to stay agile. That’s always been our strength, and it will continue to be our strength in the future.”
