Gebr. Heinemann Chief Commercial Officer Kay Spanger has challenged suppliers and retailers to better understand and tackle more seriously end-consumer expectations to futureproof industry growth. [see below video].

“If you are in the market, invest; we should [as retailers] look together to develop our market in the future, else we will have more competition due to […] ecommerce and our market won’t grow any longer – and it should,” Spanger made clear to TRBusiness during the TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition & Conference in May.

“Suppliers should also look more to the future about how to approach consumers in a different way; we have to create more ideas around categories or even cross-categories.”

During Gebr. Heinemann’s annual press briefing in Hamburg earlier this year – always a convivial occasion – Kay Spanger spoke about the development of the purchasing division, which blends into the Group’s new C-level structure initiated under CEO Max Heinemann.

At the time of the press briefing, Spanger highlighted the importance of purchasing functions striking the right balance between global negotiations and local market wins to deliver an appropriate assortment.

Striving to be, on the one hand, a leading retailer in terms of efficiency is invariably met with the need to provide the best offers for consumers, he outlined.

Spanger made clear that ‘support comes with support’, in turn sounding a word of caution to those suppliers that do not take travel retail seriously. TRBusiness picks up on this during one of the exchanges in the interview.

Focusing on Asia Pacific beauty, Spanger addresses heightened pressures such as online price aggression and an increasing appetite for sustainable products.

He also talks about the full integration of Scorpio Worldwide following the Group’s decision to purchase the remaining shareholding in the subsidiary, and explains why the move offers advantages in an uncertain inflight duty free climate.