Bart Becht, chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser, is not so much a leader as a referee. As head of a firm responsible for products ranging from Airwick to Nurofen, he encourages constructive conflict in the 23,000-strong organisation. “It’s my job to make sure that when there is a group of people that passionately believe in a set of ideas, to let those ideas flourish and not have them crushed by a majority or consensus,” says the 51-year-old Dutchman, bathed in the glow of the packaging of some of Reckitt’s leading brands, in a mock shop at its head office in Slough, England.

Becht describes the process that led to one of the company’s most successful products, the Airwick Freshmatic, built on the idea of an industrial, automatic air freshener. In the early stages, most people involved did not believe this could be turned into a consumer product. The passionate few who did were not, however, duly silenced. Instead they were allowed to work away until they found something the consumer liked. 


This approach does lead to some lively meetings. “You can imagine on Airwick Freshmatic, when you have 10 people in the room, eight don’t believe in it and two do; you’re going to get kind of a rowdy discussion,” says Becht. “But it’s not a personal discussion. It’s much more trying to convince each other what is the better idea, how we take it forward, how you change ideas, and how you build on each other’s ideas. So it is what I would call constructive conflict, which drives better ideas, rather than all sit around the table and negotiate a consensus option.” 


The strategy has paid off. Reckitt smashed 2008 forecasts and set ambitious targets for 2009; rival Procter & Gamble cut forecasts and Unilever scrapped targets altogether.


The structure of Reckitt Benckiser is designed to encourage entrepreneurial spirit. Rather than the endless layers of management that tend to plague large organisations, the company has small teams and few processes, with just two people between the marketing director in a country and the chief executive. 


Becht says: “I believe high-calibre, smaller teams always outperform larger organisations, because if you double the organisation you don’t get double the productivity; you lose a substantial amount of productivity because now you have to organise all these interrelationships between people.” (He refrains from saying that this fervently held belief springs from his stint at Procter & Gamble before joining Reckitt in 1988.) 


“Within that context, I see my role as to provide the overall strategy and direction, to set clear targets and make sure that we focus on the right priorities. After that we leave a lot of space to the individuals to fill in their role, and to accomplish their targets in a 
way they see fit.”


Reckitt employees are encouraged to move around the world regularly, often doing different jobs in the process. The reasoning is that they become better and more rounded managers, more capable of managing an international business with a portfolio of global brands. Reckitt proudly boasts that its Veet hair removal products were sold in 75 countries in 2007, compared with 26 in 1999. 


Secondly, Becht hopes the expats will inject new ideas from abroad into their host country. He does still recognise the importance of locals for knowledge of the quirks of a particular country. For example, Veet is used in the US to remove leg hair, but in India to remove hair from the forearms, which has a major impact on how the product is marketed.


New ideas are the lifeblood of the company, whose business is to excite consumers about generally unexciting products — from disinfectant to headache tablets. Reckitt focuses on 17 so-called power brands in groups where it sees substantial growth potential. 


Becht gives dishwasher detergent as an example. Even in the most developed markets, only 60% of consumers use dishwashers, with the remainder relying on the old-fashioned method of washing up by hand. That compares to washing machines, which sit in more than 90% of homes in developed markets, making laundry detergent a largely commoditised category with limited opportunity for growth.


As such, Reckitt has focused its energies on Finish, the number one dishwasher detergent in the world. It teams up with dishwasher manufacturers to help stimulate demand for the hardware, in order to stimulate growth for its power brand. 


It is questionable how far the company can go in the segments it has chosen to focus on. Air fresheners now come with motion sensors in order to release their fragrance when somebody enters a room. Whatever next?


“We don’t believe that there is an end to innovation on our power brands,” says Becht. “We have proven consistently that we can excite consumers with better products and new features on our products; that will continue to be the focus. The consumer always wants a better product. They might not always know what they want, but when you come up with new ideas they know very well what they like and what they don’t like.”


Reckitt has had its fair share of failures, although Becht says it has fewer now that it conducts more tests before a product comes to market. Some six years ago, consumers made it quite clear that they were not willing to pay up for a battery-powered toilet brush. The Harpic Ready Brush still sits in the toilets of the company offices, a damning reminder for those poor souls who spent an inordinate amount of time fine-tuning a product that would never sell. 


Strong innovation, of course, must be backed by strong marketing. And who can forget the ludicrous advertisements for cleaning product Cillit Bang, which have inspired a techno remix and parodies in a number of different languages on YouTube? 


Reckitt still spends more than 90% of its marketing budget on television advertising, but Becht says that is rapidly shifting to digital media. “The key thing about media is it’s all about reaching your target audience in an effective and efficient manner, so it depends on how consumers react to these media. Clearly, digital is much more interactive than television is, so it has some advantages, but digital media does not work for every brand. The relative cost of television and digital also plays a role as to what extent we will use digital compared to television.” 


The company actually increased spending on marketing in the last three months of 2008, despite the desperate economic climate. So far, Reckitt is weathering the downturn very well. It posted a 26% rise in profits for 2008, although results were flattered by currency movements as the company does business worldwide but reports in sterling, which crashed at the end of last year. 


Excluding the impact of acquisitions and currency movements, Reckitt still enjoyed a 10% jump in sales. That is expected to slow to 4% next year — not bad when most developed markets are plunging into recession. Becht insists this will not be a result of people switching to cheaper unbranded products, but rather a product of slowing growth rates across developing and developed markets. 


He has been well rewarded for his success, taking home a cool £4.5m in 2007, and sees no reason this should shrink as a result of the current furore over executive pay. “The bulk of the compensation lies in performance-oriented pay,” he says. “As long as we continue to be highly successful, people in this company will continue to be paid well.”


Recession? What recession?

Reckitt’s Power Brands

Reckitt Benckiser prides itself on its 17 power brands, which between them account for 62% of net revenues and 81% of the company’s growth.


Fabric Care


Fabric Treatment Worldwide #1 — Vanish


Water Softeners Worldwide #1 — Calgon


Garment Care Worldwide #2 — Woolite


Surface Care


Multipurpose Cleaners Worldwide #1 — Lysol, Dettol, Cillit Bang 


Lavatory Care Worldwide #1 — Harpic 


Dishwashing


Automatic Dishwashing Worldwide #1 — Finish


Home Care


Air Care Worldwide #2 — Airwick


Pest Control Worldwide #2 — Mortein


Personal Care


Antiseptic Personal Care Worldwide #1 — Dettol


Depilatories Worldwide #1 — Veet


Acne Treatment Worldwide #2 — Clearasil


Health Care


Medicated Sore Throat Relief Worldwide #1 — Strepsils


Cough Relief Worldwide #2 —
Mucinex


Headaches and Indigestion — Nurofen and Gaviscon


Food


Mustard — French’s