TURNING around a loss-making business may daunt a lesser CEO, but not Cerebos Pacific president and chief executive Eiji Koike. 'I love challenges,' said the 62-year-old, who arrived in Singapore at the end of 1997 - in the thick of the Asian financial crisis - to helm the mainboard-listed food and health supplements enterprise.

Cerebos, whose flagship product is the famous Brand's Essence of Chicken, suffered an unprecedented net loss of $8 million for the year ended Sept 30, 1998. At that time, the company was beset by a host of internal and external issues that tugged him in two directions, Mr Koike told Pulses in an interview. 'The external issues were uncontrollable, like the currency crisis that originated in Thailand. I saw that the real issues existed within,' he said.

He found that the company did not have a clear vision or direction at the time. It also lacked proper headquarter functions. Apart from finance and marketing, there were no other departments such as research and development (R&D), legal, audit, human resources and corporate affairs. 'That was a big, big challenge, a shockingly big challenge for me,' Mr Koike exclaimed. But he did not despair. Despite the host of problems, he was optimistic about helming the company.

After all, he had honed his turnaround prowess in New York, where he incidentally picked up the nickname 'Eddie'. He had been posted by Suntory to the Big Apple for nearly 10 years to oversee the Japanese group's US operations. That business was bleeding and its shareholders' equity was negative when he was handed the reins. It took him a while, but he managed to put the house in order.

When asked about his impressions of Singapore when he moved here, Mr Koike was candid in his reply. 'I'm sorry to say that it was very boring.' For one thing, there was a dearth of TV channels at that time. 'Not much to watch,' he said. 'When I first came here, I was always wondering when to leave,' he said, laughing. He had thought that once the problems at Cerebos were resolved, he could go.

Fortunately for Mr Koike and his family, Singapore has got a lot more buzz these days and he no longer harbours the notion of leaving. He and his wife have noticed 'big changes' over the last 10 years in Singapore's cultural and entertainment landscape, and even dining options. He is now 'much more comfortable' about living here.

But work was certainly no bed of roses. He spent the first few years coming to grips with the issues facing Cerebos. It was not a simple task, considering that the group operates in eight key markets in the Asia Pacific.

They include Australia and New Zealand, where he was flabbergasted to find Cerebos holding an unwieldy clutch of more than 50 brands, in part because of repeated acquisitions of small brands, without the financial means to promote all of them. Mr Koike divested many non-performing and non-core brands in the two countries, and now focuses on coffee and sauces.

Unlike the late 1990s, when Cerebos incurred its first-ever loss during the Asian crisis, 'in the last 12 months, in such a financial crisis - the biggest crisis in 100 years - we did well. This is the difference ... we are immune to recession. I had started to say we want to be immune to recession five or six years ago', he said.

The group grew revenues by 8 per cent for FY2009, in local currency terms. But after currency translations, with the fall in the New Zealand and Australian dollars, revenue was flat, at $775 million. If not for the translation loss, group operating profit would have been on a par with the previous year's $119.9 million. Net profit for the year edged up 2 per cent to $82.8 million. Not bad, considering that many companies were struggling to keep afloat in the financial maelstrom.

As Cerebos's set-up is now much stronger than it was a decade ago, Mr Koike, who has an economics degree as well as an MBA, believes that 'under any circumstances, we are still able to make this company survive and maintain a good level of profitability'. 'The secret is that in the last 10 years we have been trying to build competencies and polish our own expertise. That's why I have strong confidence in running this company now.'

Cerebos, which was acquired by Suntory in 1990, is the best-performing unit under the Japanese global food and beverage giant. After gleaning an insight into the Cerebos group and the issues it faced, Mr Koike went ahead to implement business plans running on three-year cycles. The first plan focused on remaking, or restructuring, the company, and the second on building competencies. Cerebos is currently in the final year of the third mid-term plan, which emphasises 'accelerating speed because we are ready to drive', he said.

There is still much to accomplish at Cerebos and Mr Koike hopes to remain in Singapore to steer it. His spouse, Hiroko, is a housewife and she likes Singapore. Their son, 27, is an architect in Singapore while their 24-year-old daughter is working in Tokyo.

'I'm still strongly interested in how to improve this company, its performance - and not just its financial performance. We are a good company, I think, but we want to be a great company. That's my longer-term goal.'

Cerebos is on its way to becoming a $1 billion company in terms of group sales. But Mr Koike has a much more ambitious target, which is to double annual sales to $2 billion in five to 10 years. But he stressed that setting financial goals alone is not his ultimate objective. Rather, it is to lift the morale and quality of employees to a level of excellence that is among the best in the Asia Pacific.

For this to happen, cultivating the right corporate culture is the key. 'Every three years we conduct an employees' engagement survey to look into how people are engaged, how people are aligned. That study is very interesting in the sense that (it finds) there's a high correlation between good performance and good culture.'

Hence, 'if we improve the culture and people's motivation, if we can engage employees in our business, the performance will automatically improve'.

Mr Koike believes that only 25 per cent of Cerebos's potential has been tapped. To unlock the remaining potential, 'we need to build a higher wall which cannot be attacked by competitors easily. Actually, competition is okay. If there's no competition, we cannot be creative. But we need to build a strong castle; then nobody can attack'. This will ensure that Cerebos can sustain its growth and profitability.

As part of nurturing the right company ethos, Cerebos supports work-life balance through social and sports activities for the staff. And when employees from different divisions mingle and socialise, they communicate better.

Over the past six years, Cerebos employees have been taking part in the Standard Chartered marathon. Mr Koike, who joins his staff on their weekly jogging sessions on Thursday afternoons, had to give the marathon a miss last year, but he completed the previous five half-marathons. To set a good example, he trained hard each time and even out-ran most of the younger employees. He plans to take part in this year's event.

The marathon is not just the biggest sporting event that Cerebos employees take part in. It is also a valuable avenue for him to meet and interact with a wide spectrum of staff, including some from Cerebos's overseas branches. The group has more than 2,000 employees, including about 160 based in Singapore.

Going against stereotypes, Mr Koike prefers jogging to golf. 'I'm not such a good golfer. My wife is a better golfer so when I play with her, that gives me bad stress,' he joked. So, to de-stress, he walks his dog - an American Eskimo.

For Cerebos, traversing the path towards greatness means there has to be a clear roadmap for the company which will motivate staff. While senior management would be able to understand what the vision entails, it may not be so easy for those further down the line, Mr Koike noted. 'How do we cascade down such a vision and direction to the lower tiers? This is one of the challenges. Unless we do this, we cannot become a great company in terms of employees' sense of engagement and also financial performance.'

His assessment is that Cerebos is 'in between good and great, but not so close to great'. 'If it's already a great company, I'd lose my interest and retire,' he quipped.

Mr Koike reckons that the full potential of the Brand's range of products has yet to be unlocked. Still, Cerebos has been introducing new products to counter any perception of consumers that the company is 'boring'.

While seeking to expand sales of the chicken essence, Mr Koike is eschewing going global as Cerebos does not have sufficient knowledge about the regulations governing health supplements and health food worldwide. Instead, he plans to focus on the Asia Pacific region, which abounds with opportunities. More resources will be put into developing the emerging markets of Vietnam, Indonesia and Myanmar.

But it is a different story for coffee and sauces as there is little regulation governing foodstuff unless unusual ingredients are used, Mr Koike noted. Cerebos's coffee business in Australia and New Zealand has been a success. Coffee is where Cerebos is enjoying the highest growth in sales currently. Having built up expertise in this field, the group is ready to consider venturing into markets in Europe, including the UK, or the US.

In Asia, Mr Koike feels that except for Singapore, 'coffee quality is still not well understood. If quality is not appreciated, it doesn't make sense to invest in Asia at this stage. So our investment will be more in western countries'. The concept will stress freshly roasted ground coffee, with good baristas.

His zeal to improve the company and its business means Mr Koike has no thoughts of retiring. His CEO hat stays on, wherever he might be. 'Even if I'm in Bali for a few days I cannot forget business.

'In my 40-year career, the career with Cerebos has been most interesting. That's why I want to contribute further to the company for a while.'

I'm supposed to SUMMARISE this & analyse it.

Nice right? LOL.

Dear, you want help wo summarise? ^^

Once my exams over, i tell you, i'm going to go crazy.

PLAY LIKE MAD!

Ok, short post today.

Because I have absolutely no time...

Do work le..

x3 my wife, my yuki baby :)

TURNING around a loss-making business may daunt a lesser CEO, but not Cerebos Pacific president and chief executive Eiji Koike. 'I love challenges,' said the 62-year-old, who arrived in Singapore at the end of 1997 - in the thick of the Asian financial crisis - to helm the mainboard-listed food and health supplements enterprise.

Cerebos, whose flagship product is the famous Brand's Essence of Chicken, suffered an unprecedented net loss of $8 million for the year ended Sept 30, 1998. At that time, the company was beset by a host of internal and external issues that tugged him in two directions, Mr Koike told Pulses in an interview. 'The external issues were uncontrollable, like the currency crisis that originated in Thailand. I saw that the real issues existed within,' he said.

He found that the company did not have a clear vision or direction at the time. It also lacked proper headquarter functions. Apart from finance and marketing, there were no other departments such as research and development (R&D), legal, audit, human resources and corporate affairs. 'That was a big, big challenge, a shockingly big challenge for me,' Mr Koike exclaimed. But he did not despair. Despite the host of problems, he was optimistic about helming the company.

After all, he had honed his turnaround prowess in New York, where he incidentally picked up the nickname 'Eddie'. He had been posted by Suntory to the Big Apple for nearly 10 years to oversee the Japanese group's US operations. That business was bleeding and its shareholders' equity was negative when he was handed the reins. It took him a while, but he managed to put the house in order.

When asked about his impressions of Singapore when he moved here, Mr Koike was candid in his reply. 'I'm sorry to say that it was very boring.' For one thing, there was a dearth of TV channels at that time. 'Not much to watch,' he said. 'When I first came here, I was always wondering when to leave,' he said, laughing. He had thought that once the problems at Cerebos were resolved, he could go.

Fortunately for Mr Koike and his family, Singapore has got a lot more buzz these days and he no longer harbours the notion of leaving. He and his wife have noticed 'big changes' over the last 10 years in Singapore's cultural and entertainment landscape, and even dining options. He is now 'much more comfortable' about living here.

But work was certainly no bed of roses. He spent the first few years coming to grips with the issues facing Cerebos. It was not a simple task, considering that the group operates in eight key markets in the Asia Pacific.

They include Australia and New Zealand, where he was flabbergasted to find Cerebos holding an unwieldy clutch of more than 50 brands, in part because of repeated acquisitions of small brands, without the financial means to promote all of them. Mr Koike divested many non-performing and non-core brands in the two countries, and now focuses on coffee and sauces.

Unlike the late 1990s, when Cerebos incurred its first-ever loss during the Asian crisis, 'in the last 12 months, in such a financial crisis - the biggest crisis in 100 years - we did well. This is the difference ... we are immune to recession. I had started to say we want to be immune to recession five or six years ago', he said.

The group grew revenues by 8 per cent for FY2009, in local currency terms. But after currency translations, with the fall in the New Zealand and Australian dollars, revenue was flat, at $775 million. If not for the translation loss, group operating profit would have been on a par with the previous year's $119.9 million. Net profit for the year edged up 2 per cent to $82.8 million. Not bad, considering that many companies were struggling to keep afloat in the financial maelstrom.

As Cerebos's set-up is now much stronger than it was a decade ago, Mr Koike, who has an economics degree as well as an MBA, believes that 'under any circumstances, we are still able to make this company survive and maintain a good level of profitability'. 'The secret is that in the last 10 years we have been trying to build competencies and polish our own expertise. That's why I have strong confidence in running this company now.'

Cerebos, which was acquired by Suntory in 1990, is the best-performing unit under the Japanese global food and beverage giant. After gleaning an insight into the Cerebos group and the issues it faced, Mr Koike went ahead to implement business plans running on three-year cycles. The first plan focused on remaking, or restructuring, the company, and the second on building competencies. Cerebos is currently in the final year of the third mid-term plan, which emphasises 'accelerating speed because we are ready to drive', he said.

There is still much to accomplish at Cerebos and Mr Koike hopes to remain in Singapore to steer it. His spouse, Hiroko, is a housewife and she likes Singapore. Their son, 27, is an architect in Singapore while their 24-year-old daughter is working in Tokyo.

'I'm still strongly interested in how to improve this company, its performance - and not just its financial performance. We are a good company, I think, but we want to be a great company. That's my longer-term goal.'

Cerebos is on its way to becoming a $1 billion company in terms of group sales. But Mr Koike has a much more ambitious target, which is to double annual sales to $2 billion in five to 10 years. But he stressed that setting financial goals alone is not his ultimate objective. Rather, it is to lift the morale and quality of employees to a level of excellence that is among the best in the Asia Pacific.

For this to happen, cultivating the right corporate culture is the key. 'Every three years we conduct an employees' engagement survey to look into how people are engaged, how people are aligned. That study is very interesting in the sense that (it finds) there's a high correlation between good performance and good culture.'

Hence, 'if we improve the culture and people's motivation, if we can engage employees in our business, the performance will automatically improve'.

Mr Koike believes that only 25 per cent of Cerebos's potential has been tapped. To unlock the remaining potential, 'we need to build a higher wall which cannot be attacked by competitors easily. Actually, competition is okay. If there's no competition, we cannot be creative. But we need to build a strong castle; then nobody can attack'. This will ensure that Cerebos can sustain its growth and profitability.

As part of nurturing the right company ethos, Cerebos supports work-life balance through social and sports activities for the staff. And when employees from different divisions mingle and socialise, they communicate better.

Over the past six years, Cerebos employees have been taking part in the Standard Chartered marathon. Mr Koike, who joins his staff on their weekly jogging sessions on Thursday afternoons, had to give the marathon a miss last year, but he completed the previous five half-marathons. To set a good example, he trained hard each time and even out-ran most of the younger employees. He plans to take part in this year's event.

The marathon is not just the biggest sporting event that Cerebos employees take part in. It is also a valuable avenue for him to meet and interact with a wide spectrum of staff, including some from Cerebos's overseas branches. The group has more than 2,000 employees, including about 160 based in Singapore.

Going against stereotypes, Mr Koike prefers jogging to golf. 'I'm not such a good golfer. My wife is a better golfer so when I play with her, that gives me bad stress,' he joked. So, to de-stress, he walks his dog - an American Eskimo.

For Cerebos, traversing the path towards greatness means there has to be a clear roadmap for the company which will motivate staff. While senior management would be able to understand what the vision entails, it may not be so easy for those further down the line, Mr Koike noted. 'How do we cascade down such a vision and direction to the lower tiers? This is one of the challenges. Unless we do this, we cannot become a great company in terms of employees' sense of engagement and also financial performance.'

His assessment is that Cerebos is 'in between good and great, but not so close to great'. 'If it's already a great company, I'd lose my interest and retire,' he quipped.

Mr Koike reckons that the full potential of the Brand's range of products has yet to be unlocked. Still, Cerebos has been introducing new products to counter any perception of consumers that the company is 'boring'.

While seeking to expand sales of the chicken essence, Mr Koike is eschewing going global as Cerebos does not have sufficient knowledge about the regulations governing health supplements and health food worldwide. Instead, he plans to focus on the Asia Pacific region, which abounds with opportunities. More resources will be put into developing the emerging markets of Vietnam, Indonesia and Myanmar.

But it is a different story for coffee and sauces as there is little regulation governing foodstuff unless unusual ingredients are used, Mr Koike noted. Cerebos's coffee business in Australia and New Zealand has been a success. Coffee is where Cerebos is enjoying the highest growth in sales currently. Having built up expertise in this field, the group is ready to consider venturing into markets in Europe, including the UK, or the US.

In Asia, Mr Koike feels that except for Singapore, 'coffee quality is still not well understood. If quality is not appreciated, it doesn't make sense to invest in Asia at this stage. So our investment will be more in western countries'. The concept will stress freshly roasted ground coffee, with good baristas.

His zeal to improve the company and its business means Mr Koike has no thoughts of retiring. His CEO hat stays on, wherever he might be. 'Even if I'm in Bali for a few days I cannot forget business.

'In my 40-year career, the career with Cerebos has been most interesting. That's why I want to contribute further to the company for a while.'

I'm supposed to SUMMARISE this & analyse it.

Nice right? LOL.

Dear, you want help wo summarise? ^^

Once my exams over, i tell you, i'm going to go crazy.

PLAY LIKE MAD!

Ok, short post today.

Because I have absolutely no time...

Do work le..

x3 my wife, my yuki baby :)