Ans-1
Nestlé describes itself as a food, nutrition, health, and wellness company. Recently they created Nestlé Nutrition, a global business organization designed to strengthen the focus on their core nutrition business. They believe strengthening their leadership in this market is the key element of their corporate strategy. This market is characterized as one in which the consumer’s primary motivation for a purchase is the claims made by the product based on nutritional content.
In order to reinforce their competitive advantage in this area, Nestlé created Nestlé Nutrition as an autonomous global business unit within the organization, and charged it with the operational and profit and loss responsibility for the claim-based business of Infant Nutrition, HealthCare Nutrition, and Performance Nutrition. This unit aims to deliver superior business performance by offering consumers trusted, science based nutrition products and services.
The Corporate Wellness Unit was designed to integrate nutritional value-added in their food and beverage businesses.. It encompasses a major communication effort, both internally and externally, and strives to closely align Nestlé’s scientific and R&D expertise with consumer benefits.

International Strategy

Nestlé is a global organization. Knowing this, it is not surprising that international strategy is at the heart of their competitive focus. Nestlé’s competitive strategies are associated mainly with foreign direct investment in dairy and other food businesses. Nestlé aims to balance sales between low risk but low growth countries of the developed world and high risk and potentially high growth markets of Africa and Latin America. Nestlé recognizes the profitability possibilities in these high-risk countries, but pledges not to take unnecessary risks for the sake of growth. This process of hedging keeps growth steady and shareholders happy.
In Asia, Nestlé’s strategy has been to acquire local companies in order to form a group of autonomous regional managers who know more about the culture of the local markets than Americans or Europeans. Nestlé’s strong cash flow and comfortable debt-equity ratio leave it with ample muscle for takeovers. Recently, Nestlé acquired Indofood, Indonesia’s largest noodle producer. Their focus will be primarily on expanding sales in the Indonesian market, and in time will look to export Indonesian food products to other countries.
Nestlé has employed a wide-area strategy for Asia that involves producing different products in each country to supply the region with a given product from one country. For example, Nestlé produces soy milk in Indonesia, coffee creamers in Thailand, soybean flour in Singapore, candy in Malaysia, and cereal in the Philippines, all for regional distribution.

Ans-2.2
Stakeholder convenings
Starting in 2007, a number of stakeholder convenings have been held in Washington, Geneva and Kuala Lumpur to help us better understand the changing needs and expectations of society as it relates to Creating Shared Value.
In particular, the convening discussions aimed to: * reflect on Nestlé’s current commitments, policies and performance; * determine how effectively Nestlé bridges and aligns the Company’s business and Creating Shared Value strategies and initiatives; * identify opportunities and challenges, and within that, implications and specific expectations for Nestlé reporting, looking back as well as ahead.
The convenings were designed, organised and facilitated by AccountAbility, and were attended by a total of more than 50 experts from a wide range of social and environmental impact areas relevant to Nestlé’s business activities and operations. The participants were invited by Nestlé to share their perspectives candidly. Sessions were also attended by senior managers and decision-makers from Nestlé functional business areas and public affairs.
Stakeholder convenings – expert participants*
Washington, October 2008
Population Council, Conservation International, International Center for Research on Women, International Food Policy Research Institute, UN Foundation, Global Health Council, Pew Center for Climate Change, Calvert, The Nature Conservancy, Care USA, The Hunger Project, IFC, SEAF, Sustain, USAID.
Geneva, October 2009
Covalence, Swiss Farmers Union, World Economic Forum, WWF, International Chamber of Commerce, Center for Governance, South Center, Graduate Institute, Fair Labor Organization, UBS, Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa (IFAPA), The Methodist Church.
Kuala Lumpur, December 2009
Malaysian Institute of Corporate Governance, Nutrition Society of Malaysia, Business Council for Sustainable Development, National Council of Women’s Organizations, Malaysia Industries Commerce and Companies Information, Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, Business Ethics Institute of Malaysia, Halal Industry Development Corporation, Malaysian Nature Society, Securities Commission of Malaysia, Transparency International Malaysia, Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations, Malaysian Association for the Study of Obesity, Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM), WWF Malaysia

Other stakeholder partnerships
Nestlé also works closely with a number of stakeholders from across the globe to share insights, identify best practices and leverage greater impact for its efforts through programming partnerships, policy forums, leadership events and market-wide frameworks. These include: * a global partnership with the International Federation of the Red Cross/Red Crescent societies dedicated to clean drinking water and sanitation; * the International Cocoa Initiative, a partnership between the cocoa industry, NGOs and unions, to eliminate the roots of unacceptable child labour in cocoa-growing areas; * the International Food and Beverage Alliance, a coalition of 10 of the largest food and beverage companies, in dialogue with the World Health Organization to help implement its Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health; * the European Food Sustainable Consumption and Production Round Table, which aims to establish the European food chain as a major contributor towards sustainable consumption and production in Europe, and which we co-chair with the European Commission; * the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI), a food industry-wide collaboration to support development and implementation of internationally accepted principles and standards for sustainable agriculture.
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