Nouryon is a world class business, evidenced by our safety record and solid financial performance. Our unique portfolio, commitment to continuous improvement, and strong customer relationships have helped us achieve high profitability and leadership positions throughout our businesses, with 80% of our revenue coming from number one or two positions. Given our strong presence in high growth markets, discipline in execution, and strong culture focused on results, we are well positioned for future success.

Our growth strategy relies on three key components:

Accelerating growth

Our key customers are winning in growth markets and we aim to grow with them. We are managing our margins to better adapt to changing raw material prices while analyzing our portfolio to fine-tune our products, customers, and prices. Paying special attention to commercializing our new product pipeline, expanding our range of eco-premium solutions, and co-developing products with customers will play a key role in accelerating our growth.

Continued operational excellence

Our ongoing commitment to operational excellence will help us maintain our strong track record of improving profitability. Continuous and thorough analysis of our sites and production processes will help us debottleneck and free up resources so that we can run our sites to their fullest potential. Embedding standardized processes, continuous improvement tools, and clear targets throughout our organization will enable us to keep improving our fixed and variable costs, while Integrated Business Planning will help us reduce our working capital costs. This combination of operational excellence and operating leverage will result in higher margins and ensure attractive ROIs as per our 2020 guidance.

Our focus on further optimization goes hand in hand with our unwavering commitment to safety for our employees and the communities in which we operate, and our belief that focusing on sustainability is simply the smartest way to do business. We will work to maintain our leadership position in Health, Safety, Environment, and Security performance and continue to drive the shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy, such as wind power and biomass.

Investments to spur a step-change in growth

We are well-positioned to make strategic investments tailored to the needs of our customers and the markets in which we operate, and we have identified and prioritized investments for the next five years that will enable continued growth. These opportunities include capacity expansions in growth markets, collaborations with startups and universities designed to spur innovation, and investment in the development of eco-premium solutions. Besides organic growth opportunities, we foresee strategic bolt-on acquisitions that will help us take our growth ambitions to the next level.

Since the start of 2017, we have announced various investments or plant startups that support the growth of our customers; click here for an overview.