nestle innovation case study

How Nestlé Became The World's Largest Food Company

Table of contents.

Let’s trace the origins of Nestlé and its exceptional legacy of 150+ years that have led it to become a company with:

• Market cap of $326.07 Billion as of Feb 9, 2023
• Over 2000 brands worldwide
• Monumental presence in 186 countries
• A workforce of nearly 276,000 employees
• Revenue of CHF 87.1 billion in 2021
• 354 factories in 79 countries

Grab a Kit Kat or sit back with a cup of freshly brewed Nescafe, and let’s go back to 1866 , the year it all began.

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A Merger Lays The Foundation Of Nestlé’s Success

The story of Nestlé begins with Henri Nestlé of Vevey, a namesake of the company, and unsurprisingly, its founder. But it is also linked with two brothers, Charles and George Page, who were located far away in America at the time.

While the world of business was not a global village back then, perhaps it was fate, the love for milk, or sheer successful marketing strategy that brought the businesses of the two together to form the Nestlé we see today.

The creation of Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company

Charles Page was a U.S. consul who visited Switzerland and became intrigued by its Swiss cows and beautiful meadows. The country had been a primary milk production center since the 19th century due to its available resources of high-quality cows and attracted people with a passion for milk production from far and wide. 

Page was one such individual with a different aspiration: he wanted to create condensed milk. Easy to store and transport, condensed milk, according to him, was the next big thing in the entrepreneurial world. 

Therefore, with his brother George Page, he created the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company and opened the doors of the first-ever condensed milk factory in Switzerland, in the town of Cham, in 1866.

Henri experiments

Meanwhile, Henri Nestlé was a local pharmacist in Vevey who loved experimenting with anything and everything he could get his hands on. This meant creating incredible food fusions was right up his alley.

During the 1860s, infant mortality rates remained a grave problem in Switzerland. As a man with 13 siblings, Henri understood the woes of infants. Yet, the turning point came when he saw that premature babies faced difficulty in consuming breast milk.

Invoking his creativity, he combined available resources and his scientific knowledge to produce “ Farine Lactee ” in 1867, an infant formula made with cow’s milk, wheat flour, and sugar.

This proved to be a breakthrough, and soon, sales increased to 1000+ cans in 1871 and more than 2000 in 1873. Two years later, Nestlé’s products could be found worldwide, including but not limited to Indonesia, Egypt, and the U.S.

As sales increased exponentially, Henri gave his company a logo symbolizing his family name that meant “Little Nest”. The logo, therefore, contained a bird’s nest.

Today, the logo has been simplified but remains its original idea and charm as an ode to the founder.

A rivalry emerges

In 1875, Henri retired, and the company was led forth by three local businessmen in Vevey. However, simultaneously, the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company expanded to newer markets in Europe, and upon discovering Nestlé’s infant formula and its success, it developed a rival product and floated it into the market.

To Nestlé, this was nothing less than a declaration of industry war, and soon after, Nestlé added a new product to its portfolio: a Farine Lactee condensed milk. Fierce competition developed, followed by price wars and predatory market strategies.

As both companies competed for a greater market share and ROI on their rival products, it did not come as a surprise when both began generating lower revenues and making losses.

The price war lasted roughly for about 30 years until the death of all three – Henri, George, and Charles.

In 1905, the current directors of the companies agreed to halt their rivalry and combine their businesses for greater market share, revenues, and expanded reach over the globe.

As a result, Nestlé and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co. was founded – that eventually became Nestlé.

Certificate for 100 shares of the Nestlé and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co., issued 1. November 1918

Key takeaway 1: leave emotion out of strategy

For many years, Henri and the Page brothers went head to head in the milk industry, expanding into European markets, creating substitute rival products, adopting predatory pricing strategies, and undercutting price benchmarks. 

All this only yielded the worst for both businesses in the form of reduced revenues, higher price elasticity of demand, and a confused clientele.

Their saving grace was the strategic decision of the directors to call a truce and join forces – shared winners over lone losers. With the main competition becoming the same company, the focus was brought back to improving operations and opting for practices the business could sustain. Resultantly, the only path now was onwards and upwards.

This means foresight, strategy, and impartial business sense take priority over emotional responses, especially in the business world.

World War I, Government Contracts, & Innovative Strategies

Most companies take a few years to establish themselves in their local markets, minimizing risks. Only once they are comfortably settled and have enough brand appeal and resources to expand do they risk entering the global market.

But Nestle is not like most companies, is it?

Henri Nestle had become a big player in the Western Europe Market, and Page Brothers were leading the way in Britain. Thus, the merger already allowed Nestle to be the go-to condensed milk brand.

From there, it was always going to spread itself and capture as much of the global share as it could, and so it did. Within a decade, this newly merged company had taken its operations around the world, establishing factories in the UK, Europe, the United States, and Asia.

An unexpected opportunity

WWI broke out in 1914, and the scale of disruption around the globe was huge.  Almost every industry was affected. Some thrived and grew, but many collapsed or barely survived.

Nestle also faced an initial period of hardship where it was difficult to maintain its supplies due to severe shortages, and maintaining a smooth distribution network in Europe was near impossible. Hence, most of their supplies ran out of catering to the needs of locals.

However, the war presented a unique opportunity. The demand for milk shot up, and consequently, governments around the world sought contracts with major milk producers and distributors.

Nestle acquired several of these contracts that enabled it to not only come out of the difficult situation it was in but also rapidly expand its operations. It developed most of its factories in the US, where supply and distribution were easier, and recovery began. In fact, by the end of the war, the company had over 40 factories in the world, nearly doubling Nestlé’s overall production.

Moving forward by embracing innovation

Of course, the circumstances around WWI were unusual and worked in favor of Nestle. But it wasn’t the only reason the firm grew at such a pace. Research and innovation had defined the companies that came together to form Nestle. Hence, the same qualities were inherited and ingrained in Nestle. At a time where global infrastructure was going through a phase of transformation, Nestle was at the forefront of it utilizing it and spreading it.

For instance, railways and steamships were the new business logistics, and they became the company’s ticket into established and untapped urban markets overseas. Print media became the main face of modern marketing. Nestle cleverly capitalized on it by projecting its brand through newspapers, magazines, and billboards. The adverts focused on what made the company stand out: quality, taste, nutrition, safety, and affordability – characteristics Nestle still proudly stands by.

All while these advancements were being embraced, Nestle didn’t lose sight of what they were truly about: their products. Hence, as far as production is concerned, they continued to introduce more efficient methods in their factories, expanding their capacity and boosting quality.

Key takeaway 2: growth follows the ambitious

Both World Wars were make-or-break events. From a decrease in demand to a disruption in supply, Nestle faced all sorts of challenges. But Nestle, even before it merged, was always looking for opportunities to grow, and the government contracts gained during the war were essentially the result of it. If Nestle didn’t have its operations worldwide, it would never have captured the governmental radar. It may have survived the shortage; it may not have.

These contracts allowed the company to grow, which worked perfectly with its innovative strategies, such as tapping urban markets and marketing using print media to enhance the brand appeal and create brand affinity. This highlights the importance of being proactive and always looking for potential opportunities, even in challenging times. 

World Wars & Expanding The Product Portfolio

1918 , the year WWI finally ended.

The fighting did stop, but the unstable economic situation the world was in couldn’t be fixed easily. Nestle’s government contracts were up, and it found itself amongst the many companies facing the force of the crisis. To add to their difficulties, consumers that had shifted to condensed milk during the war shifted back to fresh milk as supply resumed.

The company went into a loss for the first time in 1921 .

Timely response

At that point, sales were down, and production costs were high for Nestle. Its operations needed an overhaul to reach sustainability. For this purpose, Swiss banker Louis Dapples was handed the task of reorganizing the company.

Not only was he able to match production and sales, but the move also helped Nestle clear its outstanding debt. Thereafter, the company spent a good part of the decade staying afloat and focusing on sustaining its operations.

More than a milk company

First milk, and then condensed milk; despite having a global reach, Nestle hadn’t really made an effort to expand its product portfolio.

Perhaps, till the 1920s , it had never felt the need to. It had been growing at a rapid pace and adding several countries to its customer base. Now, as growth stagnated and consumer demand shifted to fresh milk, something different had to be done.

Thus, they made a series of acquisitions that opened their doors to new industries, the most notable of which was the Kohler Swiss Chocolate company in the mid-1920s . Consequently, chocolate became the second most important product of Nestle.

‍ Nestlé buys Switzerland's largest chocolate company Peter-Cailler-Kohler

Alongside chocolate, the company also introduced malted milk, a powdered beverage named Milo, and powdered buttermilk for small children.

Malted chocolate drink Milo launches in Australia

The Nescafe revolution

The chocolate business was going well for Nestle, but they were yet to launch the product that would change the company’s future forever.

In 1930 , the Brazilian Coffee Institute approached the company with a unique problem. Brazil had a huge surplus of coffee, but there was no real demand or use at the time. Nestle spent the next 8 years researching and experimenting with products to develop from this coffee.

While the Brazilians suggested coffee cubes, Nestle had a better idea instead.

Voila, in 1938 , Nestle launched “Nescafe” an instant soluble coffee solution, the first of its kind and one of the most popular Nestle products to date. This was later followed by Nestea, another incredibly popular product that continues to drive the tastes of many across the globe today.

Nestlé launches NESCAFÉ in Switzerland on 1 April 1938

The USA again becomes the helping hand

There was immense potential in Nescafe, but at the same time, Nestle began to experience the severe impacts of WWII even before it broke into a worldwide conflict. The company’s revenues nosedived from $20 million in 1938 to $6 million in 1939 .

Although Switzerland remained neutral in both world wars, the situation in Europe was highly volatile, and business could not be conducted normally. Again, Nestle looked towards America by shifting its base of operations to Connecticut, far away from the conflict.

Their previous experience during WWI had allowed the company to form healthy relationships with the states, which helped them settle in. Unfortunately, the USA could not stay away from the war for too long and joined the allies in 1941 .

For Nestle, it was a complete blessing; Nescafe became a staple food for the US military as it was easily preservable, and the taste has already become a hit. Hence, without having to spend a fortune on advertisements, the coffee product penetrated worldwide, and funnily, its first brand ambassadors were allied soldiers.

Nestle sent tons and tons of Nescafe to the frontlines and managed to turn around their sales completely. From making $100 million in 1938 to reaching up to $225 million in 1945 .

Key takeaway 3: diversify and innovate

The end of WWI and the economic depression brought by it made life difficult for almost every business, including Nestle. Plus, the fact that customers preferred fresh milk instead of condensed milk meant that Nestle found it difficult to sustain its business. 

Customers’ demands and preferences, as well as the market scenarios, can change drastically over time. Nestle learned that they needed to be flexible enough to adapt and bold enough to take risks. Otherwise, they will be left with no choice but to shut up shop. 

This is when the milk company gradually began expanding by introducing new products and exploring new markets. It, in turn, allowed the company to grow despite the difficult situation.

Hence, companies should never rest on their laurels and try to improve consistently, be it by innovating, branching out, and increasing the quality and quantity of products or services they offer.

Growth Through Acquisitions and Diversification

The end of the world war had set the perfect stage for Nestle to take its business to the next level. Sales were at an all-time high, Nescafe and Nestea were making waves, and through military and government supports, the company had opened up new markets for its products.

On top of it, the world did not go into a similar depression like WWI. Instead, it marked a period of stability and peace, one which firms everywhere looked to capitalize on. Likewise, Nestle did not waste any time in getting in on the action and making some very key and monumental moves. In fact, these post-war years are often termed as the most dynamic period in the company's history!

Seasoned Maggi Soups and Broadein Food Products

As the world recovered from the war, Nestle followed an aggressive acquisition policy acquiring multiple brands worldwide. The most significant name it added to its portfolio was fellow Swiss company, Maggi.

The journey for this soup and noodles company started somewhat around the same time as that of Henri Nestle. Its founder, Julius Maggi shared the same vision of serving nutritious yet convenient foods to the public.

After the war, in 1947 , Maggi went through a number of restructurings and changes in leadership. Resultantly, the best way for the company to move forward was to join hands with Nestle. Their established factories in numerous countries introduced the Maggi brand to the world, and it became a sensation. In fact, in many Asian regions, Maggi is synonymous with instant noodles.

The Magic of Maggi

Following Maggi’s acquisition, Nestle took over several other firms in the food industry, including:

• 1960 : Crosse & Blackwell, a British can and preserved food manufacturer
• 1963 : Findus, a Swedish frozen food company
• 1971: American fruit juices company Libby
• 1973: Stouffer, a frozen and prepared foods brand

With these moves, Nestle extended its product range and established a stronghold in the preserved foods industry.

Developing new & improving existing “convenience” products

While Nestle spread its wings by bringing other brands under its umbrella, it did not lose sight of the products it developed itself.

For instance, the Nescafe coffee, which had been a huge success during the war, continued its astonishing path upwards. From 1950 to 1959 , its sales almost tripled, and with the development of an anti-freeze version in 1966 , its sales quadrupled in the next decade.

Simultaneously, Nestle also worked on launching new products. In 1948 , it further embedded itself in American households with Nesquik, a chocolate powder that would instantly mix in cold milk. 

Owing to the product’s success, they even introduced the Nesquik Bunny to win over both adults and children.

During the same time, Nestle rebranded its infant cereals as Cerelac while launching an extensive range of canned foods under Maggi.

Diversifying beyond the food industry

By the 1970s , Nestle had well and truly occupied a dominant position in the food industry. It was now time to step out of the comfort zone and venture into new industries.

The big break came in 1974 when Nestle made a move for a Parisian hair care company, L'Oréal. Established in 1909 , this company had gone from making hair dyes to a full range of cosmetic care products. It has also formed a loyal customer base in France.

With big plans, Nestle offered the family owners of L'Oréal a 3% stake in Nestle in return for a 50% share. The offer was too attractive to refuse, and the two companies entered into a new partnership. This merger reaped multifold returns for both parties, and by the 1980s , the brand was the leader in its industry.

The cosmetic arena wasn’t the only one Nestle aimed to capture. There was an economic slowdown and general volatility between the French and Swiss markets. The price of cocoa and coffee went up more than three times. Nestle decided to take a risk and leap into waters it had never been in before.

In 1977 , it also became the owner of the American pharmaceutical company, Alcon. This, too, was a success with the brand operating in 75+ countries and being sold more than twice that number.

Merger to remember & the future of coffee

Nestle never looked to slow down despite its numerous acquisitions and diverse brand offerings.

In 1984 , it offered a mind-blowing $3 billion to buy out the food company, Carnation. Many believe this to be one of the largest acquisitions outside the oil industry – at least at the time. The scale of the deal was such that it took a year for it to be approved and finalized.

It wasn’t just being in the same industry that sparked Nestle’s interest; it was also the fact that Carnation had a diverse portfolio, including a profitable pet food brand, Friskies, and Contadino tomato products.

Nestle also added UK confectionery company Rowntree Mackintosh to its list of acquisitions in 1988 , giving it ownership of popular chocolates, Kitkat and Smarties. In the same year, it also included Buitoni-Perugina, a major Italian pasta and confectionery company to its mix.

Alongside the mergers, Nestle was also actively working on making a comeback with its coffee products. Thus, in 1986 , it rolled out Nespresso, a premium version of its coffee, different from the previous freeze-dried budget version. The idea behind it was simple: present a DIY system for any person who wanted to enjoy luxury coffee.

Key takeaway 4: seek opportunities in both new and existing industries

Many firms that plan to diversify their portfolios lose grip on their main industry. Nestle wasn’t one of them. Its initial strategy for growth post-WWII was to cement its hold in the food industry with a series of acquisitions and new product offerings. Then, it made its move in other industries while still improving on its basic offerings of food, coffee, and chocolate-related products.

Nestle grew exponentially by tactfully merging and acquiring companies it thought would add value to its brand. This paid off handsomely and turned Nestle into a force to be reckoned with. It highlights the need for brands to enhance their value offerings, using whatever means they have at their disposal, right from diversifying to collaborating with others.

International Force - Nestle's Global Strategy

With the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, markets in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as China opened up. Trade barriers disintegrated, liberalization picked up the pace, and economic markets around the globe started to integrate well.

This proved to be quite beneficial for Nestle. There were new diverse markets to expand to and favorable policies that encouraged them – not that they needed any second invitation. 

Onwards & upwards with tactful acquisitions

From the late 1990s to the late 2000s, Nestle went on an aggressive acquisition spree and acquired the following companies:

• San Pellegrino group , the leading Italian mineral water business, in 1998 paved the way for Nestle to launch Nestle Pure Life and lead in Europe while making a way into developing countries worldwide.
• Spillers Petfoods in 1998 enabled Nestle to cement its position as a key player in the pet food business around the globe and Europe in particular.
• Ralston Purina , U.S.'s pet food business, in 2002 and merged with Nestlé Friskies Petcare, creating a market leader in the pet care industry, Nestlé Purina Petcare.
• The U.S. ice cream business merged with Dreyer's in 2002, establishing Nestle as the leader in the U.S., the world's largest ice cream market. 
• Movenpick Ice Cream in 2003 to complement Nestle's super-premium ice cream brands portfolio in North America and Italy.
• Delta Ice Cream in 2005 as Nestle's realized that the ice cream business was a profitable opportunity and the company could make inroad in the growing Greek and Balkans ice cream market.
• Chef America Inc in 2002 as Nestle continued with its horizontal integration and expanded into the frozen foods market, which was growing.
• Jenny Craig and Uncle Toby's in 2006 as Nestle wanted to stay true to its commitment to nutrition, health, and wellness and reinforce its presence in the U.S., the world's largest nutrition and weight management market.
• Medical Nutrition division of Novartis Pharmaceutical in 2007 as it was complementary to Nestle's Healthcare Nutrition Business and enhanced Nestle's capabilities to cater to the needs of its customers with special nutritional requirements.
• Henniez in 2007 to augment its position in the competitive Swiss bottled water market, leveraging the solid industrial capacity and distribution network of the company.
• Gerber , the iconic U.S. baby food brand, in 2007 became the number 1 player in the U.S., the world's largest baby food market, transforming Nestle Nutrition into a global leader.

A number of other partnerships were also made, such as the one with Belgian chocolatier Pierre Marcolini , helping Nestle augment its position in the food and nutrition industry while allowing it to diversify in health, wellness, and beauty.

Now, why did Nestle do that?

The answer is to remain attuned to the changing consumer tastes and remains ahead in a market that never stays still.

Sure, continuous innovation is essential, but Nestle didn't just rely on that and continued to acquire businesses and benefit from synergies to become the undisputed leader in the business world.

All this while, Nestle has remained true to its roots and continued to delight its customers worldwide.

Realizing that with expanding its global footprint, there was bound to be an array of issues that it needed to deal with effectively, Nestle launched a Group-wide initiative called GLOBE (Global Business Excellence) .

The primary purpose behind this initiative was to harmonize and simplify business processes and empower Nestle to make the most of its competitive advantage while alleviating the risks and drawbacks.

Key takeaway 5: growth & diversification through acquisition

From San Pellegrino in 1997 to Henniez and Gerber in 2007, Nestle's relentless strategy to acquire an array of businesses in different markets, ranging from pet care and baby food to ice cream and bottled water, strengthened its overall position and breathed new life into the company.

Nestle not only wanted to expand to new product lines but also become the market leader in all of them, in different parts of the world. The fastest and most effective way to do just that was through strategic acquisitions. 

In an ever-evolving market, staying still or focusing solely on a select few activities is risky for large businesses. The key, at times, to grow is to embrace an external growth strategy by acquisitions in different industries with distinctive lines of business.

Commitment To Innovation

Nestle stays firmly committed to its goals of helping people, families, and pets around the globe live happier and healthier lives. From meeting the ever-evolving needs of the modern consumer to providing safe and premium-quality of food on-demand, Nestle does it all.

However, it understands that dramatic shifts are happening in the market with consumer demands dynamically changing, new entrants offering endless choices, and people living and shopping in ways never seen before.

Winning in such an environment requires disruption and a hybrid-growth model. No one understands that better than Nestle, and here’s how it is driving value from its base portfolio while embracing new ventures to scale up.

Nestle: 150-year-old start-up innovating from within

Unlike other business entities that outsource the innovation part and fail to prepare for the future, Nestle has strategically decided to combine its scale and capabilities with the mentality and speed of a start-up.

InGenius , Nestlé's employee innovation accelerator, is the ultimate platform that encourages intrapreneurship within the company. Internal start-ups within the company are launched , and employees are encouraged to think big and creatively.

Moreover, Nestle’s global R&D accelerator program brings together scientists, students, and employees, empowering them to come up with new innovative products.

Lean designs, fast prototyping, quick testing, continuous hustling, and room for big risks make the incubator program a success. The goal of the internal start-ups is to help promptly develop new product lines from scratch within 9 months, paving the way for the future of food.

What’s more is that employees are given challenges to solve, ranging from improving the quality of food to helping achieve the net-zero target. On top of this, Nestle also helps young social entrepreneurs, outside its fold, by offering them holistic support, mentorship, and access to its R&D and innovation experts by partnering up with Ashoka – an organization that identifies and supports social entrepreneurs.

Rethinking & reinventing

To better tap into today’s consumer trends, Nestle goes the extra mile to revive the brands with modern innovation.

It does this by introducing new varieties of products and adding unique flavors to attract new customers and retain existing ones. For instance, in 2017 alone, Nestle launched 1000 new products. Yes, that’s right!

From bringing in new flavors of juices and milk to launching frozen organic meals and non-dairy desserts, among others, it tries its best to exceed its customers’ expectations.

Enhancing capabilities

Fueling growth through innovation and improving operational efficiency are two key components of Nestle’s value creation model.

While innovation is considered everyone’s job at Nestle , increasing operational efficiency is also stressed.

Each and every aspect of the business, be it hiring people, using data analytics to make decisions based on logic, optimizing supply chains, or deploying manufacturing solutions, is reviewed and revamped to increase efficiency and deliver desired business outcomes.

Future of food

Nestle, together with Swiss academic and industrial partners such as ETH Zurich, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), and companies Bühler and Givaudan, announced a joint research program, Future of Food , that will help develop nutritious, tasty, sustainable, and trendy food and beverage products.

It's just another example of Nestle leveraging innovation and partnerships to move forward. Plus, it highlights Nestle’s commitment to providing healthy food while doing right by the environment.

The future is healthy, sustainable, and personalized

Nestle is actively working on providing healthier diets to people worldwide. It's even reformulating its popular products such as Kit Kat and Maggi, among others, to reduce the sugar, salt, and saturated fat in them while also transitioning its brands towards organic.

In addition to this, it is actively working towards ensuring its supply chains have zero environmental impact and reducing its carbon footprint by changing its plastic packaging.

Nestle has announced that it will phase out all packaging that’s not recyclable by 2025 and ensure the packaging it uses is eco-friendly.

Last but not least, Nestle, in its quest to stand out and scale, is emphasizing the need to please customers in every way possible. It aims to do that by delivering customers exactly what they want, how they want it, and in the taste, and shape they want it.

Meeting the needs of consumers on an individual level, according to Nestle will make all the difference. Hence, it is investing in it. Nestle acquired a start-up in UK, Tails.com, which provides tailored diets to dogs on a monthly basis based on age, breed, and weight among other factors.

Key takeaway 6: innovate, innovate, and innovate

Ascending to the top is one thing, but remaining at the top is the real challenge. Nestle’s strategy of launching incubators, experimenting with products, enhancing capabilities, and thinking ahead to create a new future highlights the importance the company places on innovation.

Nestle never hesitates to be bold and go out of its way to innovate to accelerate its growth and achieve scale. It realizes the value that can be derived from innovation and hence, leaves no stone unturned in thinking out of the box and putting its money where its mouth is.  More than anything else, this fundamental strategy has helped the company dominate and remain a customer favorite.

Nestle In The New Normal

Nestle: the multi-national company that adapts

A vital company in the challenging times of Covid-19, Nestle made many changes in its processing and manufacturing processes to continue supplying good food. As supply chain challenges intensified, Nestle focused its efforts on streamlining the supply chain end-to-end, from sourcing supplies to logistics. 

Nestle had 8.1% organic growth in the first half of its fiscal year 2022.

Nestle: the best employer

Making the health and safety of its employees a priority, Nestle implemented enhanced safety measures on and off its premises, including factories, distribution centers, labs, and offices.

Nestle responded to Covid-19 effectively and made sure its employees are protected and motivated by:

• Allowing working from home 
• Restricting travel and exposure to the virus
• Introducing the best hygiene practices
• Implementing effective social distancing measures
• Giving a special 14-day COVID-19 leave
• Offering financial support in the form of loans

Nestle: the company that gives back to the community

Nestle extended a helping hand to those in need in the crisis. It provided holistic support to medical institutions, food banks, food delivery organizations, and relief organizations in the local communities who are on the frontline. 

Not only did Nestle donate essentials such as food and bottled water but also money. Nestle joined forced with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and donated  CHF 10 million . Plus, in order to speed up the vaccination and ensure fair distribution of vaccines, it partnered up with COVAX and donated  CHF 2 million. 

Key takeaway 7: stay resilient 

There’s no doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the global markets and adversely impacted Nestle in ways more than one. However, Nestle managed to survive and thrive by continuously adapting, being proactive, and striving to do right by the people and the communities it served, as evident from its increased market share and growth during the period.

Nestle in a nutshell

Nestle products are recognized, consumed, and valued in all corners of the world. It is a company that has ingrained itself in the day-to-day life of people and continues to raise the bar higher. From innovation, people management, and a long-term strategic approach to the quality of products and services, social responsibility, and competitiveness, Nestle ticks all the boxes.

Here are the four main lessons derived from the growth of Nestle from a relatively small Swiss-based company established in 1866 to one of the most successful, admired, and profitable multinational companies in the world:

Key takeaway 1: globalize but also localize

A company as big as Nestle, which operates in almost all countries worldwide, has achieved success by localizing its offerings and catering to the needs of each individual market.

Sure, it could have made generalized global strategies and campaigns, but it took the difficult path by localizing everything from sourcing, product planning, production, marketing, and even its brand strategy.

It highlights the importance of being customer-centric regardless of who you are as a company and where you operate.

Key takeaway 2: innovate – change is an opportunity

Whether it be changing consumer demands, the evolving marketplace, or crisis situations, Nestle has never stopped innovating. Sure, it has paid the price of a few campaigns gone wrong, but one thing that it has been relentless at is continuing to strive to be a step ahead.

Nestle does it all, from committing to sustainability to coming up with new creative ways of providing more value to all stakeholders. It serves as a lesson for brands in this modern digital age. You can only survive and succeed if you innovate. Period.

Key takeaway 3: grow through acquisitions

Nestle has over 2000 brands. Yes, that’s right. Nestle has rapidly grown, gained a competitive advantage, increased its market share, achieved synergies, and enhanced efficiency in its business by acquiring companies.

It actively looks for potential acquisition opportunities and doesn’t hesitate to take risks. This showcases that if you want to grow as a company, you need to broaden your horizons and partner up with others. Foresight, strategic decisions, and impartial business sense are critical - now more than ever. 

The external growth strategy has worked wonders for Nestle by allowing it to expand into new industries and distinctive production lines - all of which have contributed immensely to its growth over the years. Simply put, if you can’t beat them, just join them, or well, in Nestle’s case, buy them.

Key takeaway 4: importance of brand & values

As a company, your values are bigger than your revenue. If you truly focus on and stick to your values, you can attract consumers and scale your company. Nestle has done just that by not only saying but becoming the “Good food, Good Life” company.

It firmly abides by its core principles of “ Unlocking the power of food to enhance the quality of life for everyone, today and for generations to come .”

Every decision that is made, every product that is launched, every customer that is served, is served to shape a better and healthier world. No wonder Nestle has become a global icon from a local favorite.

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Nestlé’s budget-friendly innovation strategy: ‘We are faster now than many of the startups”

21-Dec-2022 - Last updated on 21-Dec-2022 at 15:28 GMT

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And it did all this while keeping its R&D budget flat despite the growth of the company, Stefan Palzer, chief technology officer at Nestlé SA, told investors and financial analysts during the company’s recent investor day.

“When it comes to speed to market, we were able to shorten the time to market by 60% since 2016. We moved from an average project duration of 33 months to 12 months,” ​ said Palzer, adding that within food and beverage, projects can take as little as six to nine months to move from ideation to market.

“We are faster now here than many of the startups which are out there." ​

Nestlé launched and tested 12% more innovations in 2021 vs 2020, most of which offered meaningful differentiation in the market place, he claimed.

“We still have 30% of our growth coming from products we launched in the last three years, but the percentage of innovation in that 30% has increased to about 25%” ​ between 2019 and 2021 with the remaining portion focused on renovation, he said.

As another indicator of the significance of these innovations and proof they were more than simple line extension, Palzer said Nestlé increased its number of new patents in priority areas by 90% between 2019 and 2021.

Streamlining innovation processes and crowdsourcing ideas fueled growth ​

Nestlé was able to increase and speed its innovation pipeline in part by simplifying its existing process – reducing the necessary approval gates from six to three – and building 53 new pilot lines across the company to speed production and go to market earlier, he revealed.

Nestlé’s fostered differentiation within innovation by crowdsourcing product ideas internally, externally and digitally.

“We established an internal Shark Tank for our employees,” ​ who pitch their ideas and through a voting and evaluation process the best options are funded, Palzer said. This led to innovations such as a food-based teething tool, pitched by an employee in the pet food business whose child was teething but who she didn’t want chewing on plastic. Other winners include an adult chocolate milk protein beverage and a line of frozen bowls.

“Furthermore, we established 60 new collaborations with startups” ​ that combined their creativity with Nestlé’s ability to scale, Palzer added.

Finally, Palzer said, Nestlé invested in AI-based concept generation.

“We have all those social media insights on social media activities in the world. And to leverage that or to create very innovative concepts, we established an artificial intelligence concept engine, which is transforming these insights into concept proposals, which are then evaluated by our employees, by our staff. The one or the other, we do prototyping and then we test it with consumers,” ​ he explained.

Other artificial intelligence and data processing tools developed by Nestlé focused on mining clinical data for new discoveries, recipe development, targeted plant-breeding, real time surveillance of raw material quality and preventive maintenance among others, Palzer said.

Increasing innovation without increasing the R&D budget ​

Each of these steps took money, but to keep the R&D budget’s flat, Nestlé streamlined its R&D footprint by closing a third of its R&D sites and consolidating research.

With additional funds freed from these closures, Nestlé opened new research institutes focused on packaging sciences, agriculture sciences, dairy research farms and pilot coffee farms. It also opened innovation centers in China and Latin America and 14 R&D accelerators across nine markets.

Focus on high-growth categories increase innovation efficiencies ​

Nestlé also made the most of its R&D investments by concentrating on high growth categories, including food safety & quality, taste & aroma, nutrition & health, affordability, sustainability, alternative proteins, coffee & systems, early-life & medical nutrition and science-based pet nutrition.

Within these areas, Nestlé developed breakthrough technologies, including one for sugar reduction that relies on a “fermentation transformation of intrinsic sugars found in our raw materials, for instance, lactose in milk, maltose in malt, fructose in … fruit juice,” ​ and transforming them into prebiotic fibers, Palzer said.

The result was technology that could cut sugar up to 50% and calories up to 25% with little loss in sweetness and cleaner labels without additives all at little to no additional costs.

“We are already deploying this technology at large scale. Until the mid of next year, we will have 200,000 tonnes of product produced with the new technology,” ​ Palzer said.

You always see now this discussion in the public that plant-based is slowing down. Not for us

Beyond sugar reduction, Nestlé focused its innovation efforts on bringing more than 100 plant-based innovations to market in two years across brands, formats and geographies.

“Contrary to many companies out there, we do not restrict ourselves to only meat and dairy or fish alternatives,” ​ said Palzer, noting innovations in ambient plant-based products, an egg replacement, a vegan KitKat and plant-based creamers.

“You always see now this discussion in the public that plant-based is slowing down. Not for us. For us, it is still a very successful journey, and we are leveraging those developments, our various expertises along the value chain... to get to the best product by the end,” ​ Palzer said.

Beyond plant-based, Nestlé also is investing in animal-free dairy, which it shop tested in the US in the fourth quarter of 2022, and cultured meat through a partnership with Believer Meats, which it plans to shop test in 2023.

Partnerships are essential for ongoing growth ​

Looking forward, Palzer said that Nestlé’s innovation journey is just getting started and that it plans to “ accelerate translation of fundamental science into discoveries, into innovations, which we will leverage across multiple categories and brands.” ​

But to pull this off, he added, the company will continue to cultivate partnerships with retailers that can help test highly differentiated product concepts, as well as invest in technology and agriculture practices to improve sustainability of products 

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Integrated Product Development at Nestlé

• Open Access
• First Online: 04 July 2018

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• Namy Espinoza-Orias 4 ,
• Karen Cooper 4 &
• Sofiane Lariani 4  

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3 Citations

Nestlé’s purpose is to enhance the quality of life and contribute to a healthier future. In practice, it is translated into product development through a life cycle, multi-criteria, and integrated approach engaging internal and external stakeholders. An overview of the company’s values is presented as well as its creating shared value business principles, followed by an explanation of the Sustainability by Design program and how it is embedded into product innovation and renovation. The integrated development of a breakfast solution for children who skip breakfast exemplifies this approach. Being proactive and understanding that what matters to consumers entails all aspects of the product—going beyond quality and including sustainability—enriches the product development process, informs decision-making timely, provides consumers with a product they prefer, delivers competitive advantage, and supports the fulfilment of Nestlé’s public commitments.

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Integrating Sustainable Development and Design-Thinking-Based Product Design

Henkel: Sustainability in the Value Chain: From Philosophy to Practice

Product-Service Systems Development for Sustainability. A New Understanding

1 introduction.

In 2016, Nestlé celebrated its 150th anniversary and is currently the largest food and beverage company worldwide. From the beginning, when Henri Nestlé invented the Farine Lactée to save the life of an infant, Nestlé’s purpose has been to enhance the quality of life and contribute to a healthier future. What drives our value creation, both for business and society, is a nutrition, health and wellness strategy. With more than 2000 brands, whose products are sold across seven product categories in 191 countries, understanding and anticipating consumer needs in an ever evolving and competitive environment is imperative for Nestlé’s long-term business success. This is precisely the starting point of our integrated product development. It follows a life cycle, multi-criteria process, with the engagement of internal and external stakeholders and the firm inclusion of Nestlé’s values, business principles and public commitments against which our company and products are held accountable.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how key elements bring in practice product innovation and renovation with a competitive advantage. Our values framework, business model, Sustainability by Design program and integrated product development approach are reviewed. A breakfast solution for schoolchildren who skip breakfast is presented as an example of consumer-centric product development.

2 Creating Shared Value, the Nestlé Way

Guided by values rooted in respect, Nestlé works alongside partners and stakeholders to create shared value (CSV) across all the activities of the company, which contribute to society while ensuring the long-term success of our business.

Three interconnected focus areas are identified wherein our purpose is realized:

Individuals and families: to whom Nestlé offers products and services that enable them to lead healthier and happier lives.

Our communities: helping those we live and work with in developing into thriving and resilient communities, enhancing rural livelihoods, and respecting and promoting human rights.

Our planet: stewarding resources for the future, caring for water, acting on climate change and shaping sustainable consumption.

Our CSV priorities and efforts are supported by 42 specific, public commitments with clear short-term timelines (2020) as well as three overarching medium term (2030) ambitions for our focus areas. In particular, Nestlé aims to help 50 million children lead healthier and happier lives, help improve the livelihoods of 30 million in communities directly connected to our business activities and strive for zero environmental impact in our business operations [ 1 ].

The recently updated and reframed commitments as well as newly introduced ones [ 1 ] go further and deeper than the first set of them launched back in 2012. The commitments were defined taking into account stakeholder recommendations and issues material to our consumers, stakeholders and the company. The materiality assessment is carried out every two years in collaboration with SustainAbility—an independent consultancy specialized in corporate sustainability—using a formal process entailing extensive consultations of stakeholders, investors and key opinion leaders. Issues of concern in the environmental, social and governance areas are identified and assessed in order to determine their business impact in terms of risks and opportunities along with the level of interest stated by stakeholders. The commitments were also aligned in scope and timeline with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [ 2 ].

In particular, those SDGs where Nestlé has specific responsibilities as a member of the private sector and can have the most positive and meaningful impact are emphasized. This is achieved by mapping our material issues to the SDGs; as a result, it is possible to find where our activities contribute, directly or indirectly, to the realization of the SDGs.

3 Sustainability by Design

In order to embed sustainability into our products, the Sustainability by Design program led by the Nestlé Research organization assesses the sustainability aspects at the earliest phase of the product development cycle. The aim is to optimize the impacts across the entire value chain through an iterative approach that spans the product development process. The various elements taken into account are schematised in Fig.  1 .

Elements considered in the sustainability assessment of products at Nestlé

From the early stages of a product development, projects are systematically evaluated with the following steps:

Identification—as early as possible—of the opportunities or hotspots, either environmental or social. A tool has been developed that guides projects through the process of discussing its potential impact on individuals and families, our communities and the planet. Project managers collaborate with sustainability champions to identify which societal commitments their project may affect, positively or negatively. This is revisited at key moments in the project, i.e. when passing a stage gate or a major change occurs.

Comparison to the Nestlé materiality matrix (Fig.  2 ), which summarizes the issues of concern to the company and its stakeholders. As the 42 commitments are not exhaustive to all potential issues, this enables project managers to understand if their project may assist in other areas of concern.

2016 Nestlé materiality matrix (Nestlé, 2017)

An action plan is developed to either mitigate or leverage the potential impacts and is then recorded as part of the project process. The actions can consist of carrying out further in-depth assessments as the project progresses and more information becomes available.

The tool covers every step in the value chain from ingredients, processing in our factories, packaging, consumer use right through to end of life. It allows a deep dive into specific aspects; for example, into ingredients and responsible sourcing, linking into the Procurement side of the company.

At this point, a project is also assigned a specific rating for potential environmental sustainability impact, which is a key KPI tracked at a strategic level across the project portfolio. This tracking allows the calculation of time spent on projects of different ratings, an important indicator as to whether the portfolio will deliver against our environmental commitments. This rating can be reviewed or ratified at various points in the project process.

The assessment itself ends at this point, having taken approximately an hour but delivering key information on how the project will deliver against sustainability and an action plan for improvement.

Following up on the agreed actions usually involves the use of EcodEX, a simplified environmental life cycle assessment tool developed with an outside IT company, Selerant [ 3 ]. This tool allows the comparison of multiple scenarios, for instance a current product in the market versus an innovation. Early use allows detailed quantitative information on potential environmental issues and benefits to be available for decision making at a point where there is more design freedom and less cost to make changes.

Future potential work to develop this tool may include a stronger social focus and Nestlé is evaluating the latest methodologies in this area.

4 Integrated Product Development

Consumer centric product development, renovation or innovation must also take into account the different elements influencing the decision to buy food and beverage products. These are taste, price, healthiness, convenience and sustainability [ 4 ].

The incremental approaches optimizing one element at the time in a complex environment where Nestlé has to come up with heathy, sustainable products that the consumer wants and can afford, have quickly shown their limitations.

Therefore, Nestlé Research put in place a holistic approach, called PrIME, optimizing at the same time consumer healthiness, preference, sustainability and affordability. Integrating these four elements into product development through deep understanding of consumer needs and preferences has helped identifying optimal recipes by maximizing these different elements simultaneously.

Nestlé is applying the PrIME approach to product design and packaging to optimize the whole product experience by:

Mastering healthiness and sensorial product features. For example, delivering product sweetness with less sugar through optimal product design.

Improving the packaging functionality to ensure:

Inclusions of all individuals (for instance the elderly), and

Frustration free packaging experience.

Nestlé Research has developed this consumer centric product development approach in all key global brands for the past years and we are now deploying it in the main markets to support our local brands.

This consumer-centric approach is built around a process that uses a collection of standardized methodologies and tools to connect people understanding and product knowledge. The management of our knowledge and data is the foundation of this process and the way to accelerate it, iteration after iteration. Therefore, several activities are in place to optimize the management and sharing of consumer and product knowledge and data. PrIME is using data from different sources and big data techniques to ensure we constantly satisfy the evolution of needs of individuals and families.

PrIME consists of the following steps:

Identification of consumer value drivers: what is important for the individuals and families? How do they like consuming their products? What are their needs? What are their dissatisfactions? This first step is important to dive into the heart of the consumer preferences but not sufficient to decode individuals and family’s needs.

Understanding people needs and behaviours is at the heart of this approach. We use state of the art consumer research to translate multi-dimensional needs into objective product features and attributes.

Consumer centric product and technological mastership is ultimately the way to:

a. Fast track product development. b. Identify our product knowledge gaps and develop innovative, differentiating and sustainable technologies to better satisfy the consumer on the elements cited above: healthiness, preference, sustainability and affordability. c. Control our manufacturing settings and provide day after day high and sustainable product quality to individuals and families.

The PrIME approach has shown its success developing efficiently and effectively the products the consumer wants first time right and contributes to push us to  constantly innovate in technologies relevant for consumers, communities and the planet.

4.2 Nutritional Considerations for Product Development at Nestlé

Nestlé Research developed in 2004 the Nestlé Nutritional Profiling System (NNPS) that guides the nutritional dimension of formulation and reformulation of Nestlé products nutritional product development [ 5 ]. The NNPS translates nutritional recommendations from the World Health Organization and other international and national organizations—taking also technical feasibility into account—into tangible product targets, e.g. the amounts of nutrients to limit and nutrients to encourage in a product. If all targets defined by the NNPS are met, then the product achieves the Nutritional Foundation (NF). The nutritional assessment is facilitated through a tool, globally rolled out in Nestlé and used by more than 1000 product developers and nutritionists. This assessment is a fundamental step within the development process and guides further improvements in the products.

5 Case Study: Nestlé Nido GoldenStart©

Although breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day, it is common that children skip breakfast frequently, thus missing the opportunity to consume a meal rich in nutrients recommended for a wholesome diet. Existing studies and reviews on breakfast consumption habits in different regions and countries [ 6 , 7 , 8 ] report that between 10 and 30% of schoolchildren skip breakfast.

The reasons leading to skipping breakfast are varied, and include socio-demographic factors, limited nutritional knowledge, lack of time and planning for breakfast (preparation and/or consumption), absence of hunger in the morning, limited or no availability of breakfast foods that are affordable and convenient, as well as concerns about body weight [ 9 , 10 , 11 ].

A review was made to summarize recommendations for a complete, healthful breakfast in order to offer guidance on its ideal composition and energy intake [ 12 , 13 ]. A breakfast should provide between 20 and 25% of the overall daily energy intake, a range that already takes into account the number of eating occasions in a day (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks). A complete breakfast meal should consist of solid and liquid foods, with the purpose of maximizing nutrient intake and reducing or closing nutrient gaps. Foods containing protein, whole grains, fruits and vegetables are specifically recommended.

Following the holistic approaches described earlier (Sustainability by Design, PrIME and nutritional assessment through the NNPS), Nestlé developed a breakfast solution targeting the segment of schoolchildren aged 4–8 who are breakfast skippers. This product, marketed under the brand Nido GoldenStart©, provides the right combination of essential nutrients required for breakfast and 12% of the daily energy intake for this age group. Its ingredients are milk, cereals and fruits, delivered in a convenient ready to drink format (beverage carton, 200 ml). A first generation of the product (powder beverage) was launched in Central America in 2015; a second generation ready to drink version was launched in Ecuador in September 2017.

The various steps followed in the integrated product development process can be recapped as follows:

Consolidation of consumer data: The drivers of preference, expressed in terms of sensory attributes (taste, texture, aroma, colour, etc.) were identified by mining internal consumer insight data.

Definition of the right nutritional targets through the NNPS and a project to define specific nutritional targets for complete breakfasts and “breakfast-on-the-go”.

Product and process mastership: Product experts at Research and Development units as well as factories represented the key unit operations required to screen the potential ingredients, design the recipe, define the process parameters and finally manufacture the product.

A large number of possible recipes was reduced to an optimal number. These recipes were produced for consumer trials considering factors such as consumer and sensory data, recipe cost and technical constraints.

Preference mapping: The recipes most liked by parents and children were selected and the reasons for liking or disliking them were explored. In parallel, a monadic sensory profiling was performed with an expert panel to understand the consumers’ feedback. A satiation test was also conducted to assess the effect of the product texture on satiation and thus validate the portion size.

Validation test: The superiority of the final recipe was validated using a number of internal methods, among which the Nutritional Foundation (NF) and 60/40+ taste preference criteria can be highlighted. 60/40 is a Nestlé method whereby consumers are asked to state their preference in a blind test between an own product and a competitor or benchmark. A Nestlé product passes the test when more than 60% of the consumers would prefer it to the competitor product or benchmark. The “+” equals achieving the Nutritional Foundation, meaning all nutritional targets defined by the NNPS are met.

Environmental sustainability evaluation: The eco-design of the product was carried out using the EcodEX tool. On a basis of 100 kilocalories delivered, Nido GoldenStart© showed improved environmental performance on all five environmental indicators assessed (climate change, freshwater consumption scarcity, abiotic depletion, ecosystems quality and land use impact on biodiversity) when compared to a reference product.

Moreover, the integrated development of Nido GoldenStart© satisfies a clear consumer need while contributing to the achievement of Nestlé commitments on:

Inspiring people to lead healthier lives: Empower parents to foster healthy behaviours in children (not skipping breakfast).

Offering tastier and healthier choices: Launching more nutritious foods and beverages especially for children. Increase the fibre and grains content in our foods and beverages.

Safeguarding the environment: Assess and optimize the environmental impact of our products.

6 Conclusions

This holistic and comprehensive approach, as applied by Nestlé, delivers competitive advantage, leads to the fulfilment of public commitments at company level and drives our contribution as member of the food industry to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals. Informed decision-making takes place at the various steps of project execution, risks and opportunities are identified, with early warning brought up in a timely manner.

However, given the breadth of technical areas concerned and what is at stake, the interpretation of data and insights resulting from this way of working can be complex and raise some challenges. The deployment of support tools can only be justified as long as they are used properly and extensively. Deciding which business function will take up the identified actions for improvement, either Research and Development, Operations, Markets or a combination requires alignment of objectives and priorities as well as clear allocation of resources. For a company as large as Nestlé, it is fundamental to progress from starting the conversation and raising awareness on integrated product development, to consistently accomplishing it.

Being proactive and understanding that what matters to consumers entails all aspects of the product—going beyond quality and including sustainability—enriches the product development process and provides consumers with a product they prefer.

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Espinoza-Orias, N., Cooper, K., Lariani, S. (2018). Integrated Product Development at Nestlé. In: Benetto, E., Gericke, K., Guiton, M. (eds) Designing Sustainable Technologies, Products and Policies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66981-6_50

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Nestle Case Study: How Nestle’s Marketing Strategy Helped Them Grow as a Brand-2023

How many of you can answer this?

What is one common thing among Nescafe, Caregrow, KitKat, and Maggi?

Any guesses?

Yes, they are world-renowned brands, are familiar names in every household, and are products you must have consumed in your life at one point.

Anything other than these?

Yes. All these belong to one and only Nestle.

Be it in the fresh smell of hot coffee, a short break, or a bowl of tasty noodles- we cannot deny that all of us have enjoyed the awesomeness of Nestle’s products.

The brand has come a long way, crossing so many hurdles and achieving success, and it keeps growing.

Today, nestle is a brand that everyone is familiar with and uses in their day-to-day life.

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In this Nestle case study, we are discussing everything about Nestle company, the marketing mix of Nestle, nestle competitors in India, marketing sales promotion techniques of nestle, and much more.

Nestle owns more than 2000 brands, from global stars to local ones.

How did Nestle achieve this level of success?

The brand has been in the market for more than 150 years, but many companies got this opportunity but failed. Nestle survived.

What is the secret of Nestle’s success?

This Nestle case study shows you a glimpse of nestle strategy and what digital marketing and social media strategies they followed that led to achieving this success.

So, let’s start by understanding a bit more about Nestle as a company.

Nestle had come a long way from when it entered the market by selling infant food in the 1860s with a motto to reduce child mortality rates.

Gradually, it became a renowned name in the wellness, healthy food, and pet care industry with its evergreen tagline, “Good Food, Good Life.”

Now, you must be thinking that how did Nestle reach this position? How can a company build a legacy which is so powerful that it has stood still since its birth?

The answer to this may lie in Nestle’s digital marketing and functional strategy.

Nestle Case study: Introduction of Nestle company

Nestle is a world-renowned manufacturer of packaged foods and beverages. It is the world’s largest food manufacturer operating in more than 186 countries and with over 2000 product brands.

The brand came to India in 1956. Since that time, from selling its first milk product in the 1960s to selling a wide variety of Nestle products in India, Nestle has grown exponentially in India.

With such exponential growth, Nestle’s umbrella keeps widening day by day. They are not only the largest food and beverage company in the world but also one of the best companies that have effortlessly collaborated with the online world and achieved immense success.

Gradually, Nestle India started making its presence felt in the FMCG sector, and now the brand enjoys a good market share in the food and beverage industry.

Being the most extensive food and beverage brand in terms of revenue, the pricing strategy of Nestle company, along with its targeting and positioning system, has played a vital role in reaching the position where it is currently.

Let us find out how it has served the Indian market with its products and services.

Nestle offers products in breakfast cereals, beverages, dairy, chocolates, nutritious foods like vending, and food services.

Popular food products like Kit Kat, Maggi, Milkmaid, Polo, and Nescafe come under Nestle’s products sold in India.

For more than 150 years, this iconic brand has been applying its expertise in Health, Nutrition, and Wellness to help its customers, pets, and families live a healthier and happier life.

However, they believe what is good today might not be suitable for tomorrow.

So, they keep exploring and focusing on pushing the boundaries to find more to experiment with foods, nutrition, and beverages.

Nestle unlocks the power of food to improve the quality of life for everyone, not just today but for generations to come.

The brand focuses on bringing more pleasure and enjoyment to the customers, how they can enable better health, and how they can make the best nutrition affordable to everyone.

Not just these, but the brand tries new ways to protect and improve natural resources.

History & Founder

Nestle was founded in 1905 by the union of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, set up in 1866 by brothers Charles and George Page and Farine Lactee Henri Nestle, founded by Henri Nestle in 1866.

Nestle originated in 1860 when two separate Swiss enterprises later created Nestle.

In the following decades, the two rival companies grew their businesses throughout the United States and Europe.

In 1866, George Page and Charles Page, brothers from Lee County, Illinois, USA, formed the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company in Cham, Switzerland. The company’s British operation started in 1873 at Chippenham, Wiltshire.

It was during the First World War when the organization grew significantly, and again during the Second World War, the company increased its offerings beyond its initial condensed milk and infant food products.

Nestle Case Study : Facts & Figures

Here are a few interesting numbers about Nestle that sets it apart from others.

• Nestlé is the world’s largest food and beverage company.
• The brand has 276000 employees
• Nestle has acquired 30 companies

Nestle Case Study: Nestle competitors in India

Nestle has many major customer brands like Carnation, Kit Kat, Nestle-water, and Stouffers, among others.

Thirty of its brands netted more than $1 billion in earnings in the year 2010, which makes the company a vital force in the worldwide food and beverage industry.

With around 42 % of its sales being in North America, Nestle is one of the most geographically distinct companies in the food and beverage industry. It places it in a position that helps it edge over its competitors.

Its brands are well established in a considerable market share in leading economies like U.S. and Europe.

Danone and Unilever are important competitors for Nestle. These two are giants in the food and beverage industry, like Nestle.

In 2010, Unilever posted around 26% growth in yearly profits because of its accelerated sales in the food and beverage industry, especially ice cream, frozen food, tea-based beverages, and cooking products.

On the other hand, Danone stated around a 38 percent increase because of its improved share prices. In addition, a rise in its yogurt sales also enhanced the growth in earnings.

However, nestle handles positioned itself in the market by adopting a new accounting method which aided a decline in its cost of sales.

The company could also incorporate discounts, allowances, and promotions for its retailers through sales profits rather than the marketing line.

Though its sale was lesser for a year, nestle pricing strategy helped them match its peers, which in turn, made it a famous manufacturer even though the competition was so high.

Being the world’s most popular food manufacturer, nestle has intense competition with its rival company, Unilever.

Unilever has around 1,49,000 employees and operates in 160 countries, with its headquarters in London for food, home, and personal care.

The company is trying hard to beat Nestle in terms of the quality of their product, which has made Unilever the second company in the Western European ready meals market with a market share of around 8.6%, i.e., 0.3 points behind the iconic Nestle.

Nestle’s Target Audience and Products for Each Segment

The unique thing about Nestle is that it offers a wide range of products that covers audiences of different ages, from 2-year-old to working professionals.

Here’s a breakdown of Nestle’s Target Audience and the products meant for them.

• Target Audience
• Working Professionals
• General Audiences
• Koko Krunch, Caregrow, Lactogrow
• Sunrise, Nescafe
• Maggi, KitKat, Milkmaid

Everyone, especially coffee lovers, will know how Nescafe is a big hit among working professionals.

Nestle guarantees that Nescafe is the only coffee that would keep professionals fresh throughout the day, and who does not want to feel fresh?

Regarding kids, parents blindly trust the product “Caregrow” by Nestle. The product consists of cereals to keep young kids healthy.

However, nestle has several other products like KitKat, Milkmaid, and Maggi for the general audience.

It is how Nestle has designed something for everyone in India. In the coming section, we will dig into how Nestle has advertised itself and its products in the digital world.

Nestle’s Digital Marketing Strategies

By now, you must have understood that Nestle is the world’s largest food and beverage company in terms of revenue. So, it might be basic information for many of you.

But what if we say Nestle always tries to be one step ahead regarding marketing strategies and policies?

It has always focused on the most updated marketing ways no matter, whether it is digital marketing strategies or offline strategies.

Nestle’s marketing strategies will teach you to build marketing strategies that work and get a positive response from customers.

Let us start with Nestle’s Digital Marketing Strategies that must follow if they want to succeed as a brand.

Partner with influential celebrities

Nescafe, a product of Nestle, collaborates with celebrities to put forward their message and create more noise around their brand.

A few years ago, they announced Bollywood actress Disha Patani as their brand ambassador.

Recently, they launched a campaign with famous content creators called “Karne Se Hi Hona Hai,” which means “Only doing will make it happen.”

They created this campaign during the Covid Pandemic to inspire people and encourage them to keep working hard towards their dreams no matter their situation.

Through this campaign, they targeted the youth of India and asked them to dream, act, and achieve success.

• Run campaigns that foster connections and bring customers together

An ordinary 37-year-old guy named Arnaud, with 1,2000 Facebook friends, was challenged by the company to catch up with his friends over a cup of coffee.

So, he filmed these meetings and turned them into a 42-minute online video documentary. During the sessions, Arnaud enjoyed a cup of Nescafe with his pals.

The documentary was a big hit on social media. It got almost 8 million views on Facebook, around 63,050 likes, 4,850 comments, and 5,550 shares. 

The Facebook Page of Nescafe saw an increase in the number of fans by 400%.

Fans were excited by the documentary and wanted to know how to turn their online friendships into real-life relationships.

As a reaction, it created the “le Defi Nescafe,” a Facebook campaign to allow winners to reinvent the same experience.

More than 26,000 people applied, around 19,000 liked it, and nearly 1,725 shared.

Instantly, Nescafe became an online sensation by marketing itself as an item that stimulates connections and friendships.

2. Localization of Products

Localization is adapting an organization’s products to the local market. Nestle has gone huge on localization in various markets where it now manages.

For example, consider Japan, where the organization’s primary foray was through coffee-flavored chocolates.

Japan is traditionally a tea-drinking country, and the company established these candies so that kids could also get to know the taste of coffee.

Later, it introduced Nescafe and KitKat, and what happened is history.

3. Content Marketing

Nestle has created many video content on every brand’s YouTube channels. The content ranges from informative “how-to” videos to cooking tips to better insights on using the right products.

For example, the “Meri Maggi” has more than 530 videos with more than 5,71,000 subscribers.

Though video content is an expanding channel in Nestle’s marketing strategy, it has recognized other avenues to share relevant information with its consumers.

4. Out-of-Home Advertising

Nestle’s brands, including Maggi, Milo, KitKat, and Nescafe, use different ways to grab customers’ attention.

Whether benches, hoardings, or banners, Nestle’s brands have made it to the limelight for their contextuality and creativity.

What are the advantages of using OOH ads? First, most people correctly receive these ads. They are worth sharing.

People can take photos online, send them to their friends or relatives, and even marketers discuss them.

In addition, with the help of OTT, they can reach many people at a low cost.

Also, Nestle’s marketing strategies are exceptional and generate some customers.

5. Co-branding

Have you ever heard about Android KitKat?

A few years back, Google and Nestle united and invented an Android KitKat operating system.

Nestle was facing a new scandal with their pet product and wanted to capitalize on the image of Google. This movie created a buzz and surpassed the crisis.

Lately, nestle signed another deal with Starbucks to kill two different birds at a time.

First, the brand entered the new product development stage-i.e., roasted beans- and improved its brand by discovering a wide range of Starbucks Nespresso Capsules.

Did you understand how co-branding helped Nestle?

Co-branding is great for stepping into a new market and widening your reach. This marketing benefits startup that wants to create brand awareness or launch a new item.

It would help if you found companies that complement your products and collaborated with them to run co-branding promotional ads.

Nestle – Challenges Faced

Undoubtedly, Maggi was the most popular instant noodles brand in India. The brand had established its presence in India’s food industry, but suddenly it became controversial.

State food regulators stated that Maggi contains Monosodium Glutamate and lead above the recommended limits, which were dangerous, especially for kids.  

When nestle encountered lab results, it said that they had a world-class quality control procedure and that their products were safe for consumption.

Ultimately, the National Food Regulator FSSAI ordered to ban on the selling of Maggi, including product recall.

Consequently, various state governments imposed a temporary ban on selling Maggi noodles in a few states. As a result, the future of the company suddenly started looking dark.

Another acquisition of Nestle by the critics was they accused that the brand discouraged mothers from breastfeeding.

They showed that their baby formula is much healthier than breastfeeding, although they didn’t have any proof to support this.

It resulted in a boycott of Maggi for the first time after its launch in 1977 in the United States and slowly spread to Europe.

Several reports have acknowledged the widespread use of child labor in Cocoa production, slavery, and child trafficking, throughout the Western African plantations on which Nestle and other important chocolate companies depend.

As per the 2010 documentary, The Dark Side of Chocolate, the kids working are usually 12 to 15 years old. Nestle faced criticism from The Fair Labour Association for not properly checking.

Different Campaigns by Nestle 

• Ask Nestle Campaign

In this campaign, Nestle India launched a digital tool, NINA, which stands for Nestle India Nutrition Assistant on AskNestle, which used Artificial Intelligence to offer real-time nutritional information on the foods we consume.

In addition, it assisted Indian parents in designing a nutritious customized meal plan for their kids below 12.

This campaign by Nestle was India’s first artificially intelligent assistant that permits one to find nutritional information for kids.

So, this is how Nestle India set its foot on digital fronts and started driving organic traffic and improved overall engagement compared to competitors.

2. #WeMissYouToo Maggi Campaign

Maggi suffered a massive loss after it got banned as Maggi contained a high amount of Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) and lead content- more than what is allowed.

It was hard for them to hope for a comeback, but Maggi did their best and experienced huge sales. As a result, the price and volume of Maggi are now much more significant than before.

How did they do so?

They did so through their different marketing campaigns. One among them was the #WeMissYouToo campaign.

In addition, they published a few videos showing how people are kissing Maggi and how their life was better with Maggi.

Videos showed how Maggi has been a staple food for many and how its absence had affected their lives. 

In campaigns, characters addressed Maggi as “yaar” or a “close friend” who is always there for them when in need. 

Therefore, they considered Maggi’s return as a huge celebration that brought people’s life to normalcy.

3. A Campaign for kids: Poora Poshan Poori Tasalli

Nestle Caregrow started this campaign in 2019. The campaign targeted couples living in the cities who had kids between the age of 2 to 5 years.

India is where parents are very concerned about their child’s health and nutrition right from birth. Nestle kept this in mind and decided to portray this care through its campaign. 

The brand portrayed how Indian mothers worry about their kids’ proper nourishment.

The brand came up with a new product, Caregrow, which controls a child’s hunger and offers all the essential nutrients for enhancing the child’s immunity and overall development.

4. Celebrate the Breakers- KitKat campaign

Across the world, people consume around 12 billion KitKat chocolates every year.

It is one of Nestle’s most famous chocolate products available in India. The company also released “KitKat Senses, a premium “slow-whipped” chocolate.

Nestle sought to influence Instagram to support its “Celebrate the Breakers” campaign by raising awareness and message association among enthusiastic 15- to 34-year-old Instagram followers.

Nestle came up with a new worldwide advertising campaign that takes a different approach altogether with a famous slogan, “Enjoy a break, enjoy a KitKat.”

“Celebrate the Breakers” was a new idea that identified the different forms of breaks that generally “breakers” take.

The animated movies showed KitKat chocolates are the best for enjoying a break in life.

Instagram was the appropriate platform for Nestle to showcase this idea graphically.

The brand posted a series of pictures with the hashtag “# mybreak over seven weeks ,” showing how people enjoy different types of breaks, like sleeping at their workplace, enjoying a party, or listening to their favorite music.

The images of KitKat match efficiently with its customers, as Instagram is a place where people share their daily moments and experiences.

Future Plans of Nestle

Nestle planned to invest Rs. 5,000 crores in India in the coming 3 ½ years, as per Mark Schneider, the company’s CEO.

The FMCG company, which has nearly 2,000 brands across the globe, believes that this initiative will help Nestle to improve its core business in India and enjoy new growth opportunities.

It marks the brand’s most significant investment in India since the year it started manufacturing.

Nestle is renowned in food, nutrition, health, and wellness.

Its competitive strategies mainly focus on overseas direct investment in ready-to-eat, dairy, and other food businesses.

Though there is rising competition, Nestle has remained on top for a long.

It maintains its dominance by balancing sales between high-risk and low-risk nations.

Over the years, Nestle has proven itself as a leader in the food and beverage industry with product innovation and innovative marketing strategies.

It creates campaigns that are memorable, relatable, and share-worthy.

As it is moving toward developing a solid presence in the future, digital marketing will play an essential role in the future growth of Nestle.

As Nestle continues to follow its values, mission, vision, and purpose, it will continue to grow. 

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Nestlé Brings Plant-Based & Upcycled RTD Coffee Products to China

Nestlé has introduced six new coffee lines to China, which include plant-based beverages and a first-of-its-kind upcycled innovation.

Already a market leader for 36 years now, global CPG giant Nestlé has invigorated its coffee portfolio in China to meet the growing demand for sustainable, plant-based bottled drinks.

Part of the new range are two vegan ready-to-drink offerings (Coconut Americano and Oatmeal Latte) and an upcycled coffee offering (Guoran Light Coffee) that is new to the Chinese market. The shake-up, which sees all sub-brands integrated into the Nescafé lineup, comes as Nestlé aims to consolidate its position in the country’s evolving coffee sector.

“Consumers’ coffee consumption is increasing, from initially one cup a day to possibly two to three cups a day. For us, this is an opportunity,” Alfonso Troisi, senior VP for coffee at Nestlé Greater China, said in a press chat at the Food & Beverage Innovation Forum (FBIF) last month. “As consumers enjoy coffee in more scenarios, we also need to expand more applicable products.”

Keying into consumer preferences

The Coconut Americano contains over 20% coconut water and is low in sugar and fat content, while the oat-based Oatmeal Latte has 7g of dietary fibre (which is why it’s positioned as a breakfast option).

This will speak to the increasingly health-conscious Chinese consumer. A 2023 report by Asymmetrics Research noted how milk alternative brands are highlighting attributes like ‘no sugar/cholesterol/trans fat’, ‘good for brains/eyes’, and ‘high protein/calcium’ on product packaging, alongside cleaner labels.

“China is promoting healthier and more nutritious food options in response to the  Healthy China  policy,” said David J Ettinger, chief representative officer at law firm Keller and Heckman Shanghai. “Therefore, foods offering health benefits and high nutritional value are going to likely lead the way. Chinese consumers will look to healthier options, like alt-proteins, so it will be up to the alt-protein industry to demonstrate that these novel foods provide another nutritious option for consumers.”

Moreover, the use of coconut and oat is a shrewd move from Nestlé, as Chinese consumers have indicated their preference for these flavours. There are more oat milk options in China than any other plant-based alternatives, thanks to its dominance in coffee. In tier 1 and 2 cities, oat and coconut have become common milk choices in lattes.

As for the upcycled beverage, this makes use of cascara , the outer husk of coffee cherries that are typically discarded. In many cultures and countries, this red ‘coffee fruit’ is used to make hot and iced teas, and it’s something increasingly being adopted by specialty coffee companies.

Cascara has a slightly sweet and fruity flavour, and while it does contain caffeine, it’s present in much smaller amounts than the seeds enclosed within, Troiso explained. “In Yunnan, people will make coffee peels into coffee fruit tea for drinking. Therefore, we use it as the main ingredient to make it a drinkable drink every day,” he added.

The Nestlé executive suggested that this product – the result of 10 years of work – was launched with the circular economy and the regenerative food system in mind. “The use of the same coffee bean has expanded from the conventional method of making coffee to the use of the entire coffee fruit, including the peel, and its value has been fully explored,” he said.

“Chinese consumers still like fruit tea flavours, whether it is fruit juice, or other flavoured and tea-based beverages. Therefore, we hope that in addition to coffee lovers, we will also want some other users to try this new product.”

Taking on the Chinese coffee boom

Coffee consumption in China is increasing, with people drinking two to three cups a day. The market reached 617.8 billion yuan ($85.5B) in 2023, and is slated to surpass the trillion-yuan mark ($138B) by next year. It has resulted in increased competition between coffee companies like Luckin, Costa, Starbucks, as well as Nestlé. While it dominates the instant coffee realm, the latter’s targeted move into bottled drinks represents its need – and willingness – to adapt.

“China has a highly dynamic coffee market and growth, and tends to form its own unique and constantly evolving coffee consumption trends,” Troiso told FoodNavigator-Asia.​ “Based on insights into the local coffee market, we have rearranged our product lines based on consumption scenarios and target groups to ensure better and more targeted product innovation based on consumer needs.”

In fact, last year, Nestlé appointed its first local R&D head for Greater China to identify emerging market trends and preferences of younger consumers. The conglomerate has also shortened its product launch cycle from 12-18 months to eight to 10 months, and is now aiming to bring that down to six months. Nescafé, meanwhile, will soon launch a coffee innovation centre in Shanghai to capitalise on the coffee opportunity.

“We pay close attention to the various stages of consumers’ lives and what kind of coffee needs they have in those stages,” Troiso said at FBIF. “We found that the majority of Chinese users were exposed to coffee for the first time during the gaokao [the national college entrance exam]… As they enter the workforce, their needs change, and we adapt our products to those changes.”

He added: “Our goal is to be a brand that can stay close to the needs of consumers, such as providing products that lift spirits and meet the needs of different user groups. We want to create a brand image that is close to the minds of consumers. In recent years, we have also worked to promote the sustainability of coffee, which has also resonated more with young people.”

Troiso suggested sustainability is the joint responsibility of the entire industry, reiterating Nescafé’s 2030 plan of cutting emissions in half and sourcing 50% of its coffee through regenerative agriculture by the year. “We have clear targets to reduce carbon emissions, so we have taken different measures at all levels,” he said.

“In addition, consumer awareness is also very important. We strive to educate consumers about the sustainability of coffee and share information about sustainable coffee, because consumer choices drive progress on sustainable projects.”

Anay is Green Queen's resident news reporter. Originally from India, he worked as a vegan food writer and editor in London, and is now travelling and reporting from across Asia. He's passionate about coffee, plant-based milk, cooking, eating, veganism, food tech, writing about all that, profiling people, and the Oxford comma.

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• Published: 15 May 2024

Learning together for better health using an evidence-based Learning Health System framework: a case study in stroke

• Helena Teede 1 , 2   na1 ,
• Dominique A. Cadilhac 3 , 4   na1 ,
• Tara Purvis 3 ,
• Monique F. Kilkenny 3 , 4 ,
• Bruce C.V. Campbell 4 , 5 , 6 ,
• Coralie English 7 ,
• Alison Johnson 2 ,
• Emily Callander 1 ,
• Rohan S. Grimley 8 , 9 ,
• Christopher Levi 10 ,
• Sandy Middleton 11 , 12 ,
• Kelvin Hill 13 &
• Joanne Enticott   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4480-5690 1  

BMC Medicine volume  22 , Article number:  198 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

2 Altmetric

Metrics details

In the context of expanding digital health tools, the health system is ready for Learning Health System (LHS) models. These models, with proper governance and stakeholder engagement, enable the integration of digital infrastructure to provide feedback to all relevant parties including clinicians and consumers on performance against best practice standards, as well as fostering innovation and aligning healthcare with patient needs. The LHS literature primarily includes opinion or consensus-based frameworks and lacks validation or evidence of benefit. Our aim was to outline a rigorously codesigned, evidence-based LHS framework and present a national case study of an LHS-aligned national stroke program that has delivered clinical benefit.

Current core components of a LHS involve capturing evidence from communities and stakeholders (quadrant 1), integrating evidence from research findings (quadrant 2), leveraging evidence from data and practice (quadrant 3), and generating evidence from implementation (quadrant 4) for iterative system-level improvement. The Australian Stroke program was selected as the case study as it provides an exemplar of how an iterative LHS works in practice at a national level encompassing and integrating evidence from all four LHS quadrants. Using this case study, we demonstrate how to apply evidence-based processes to healthcare improvement and embed real-world research for optimising healthcare improvement. We emphasize the transition from research as an endpoint, to research as an enabler and a solution for impact in healthcare improvement.

Conclusions

The Australian Stroke program has nationally improved stroke care since 2007, showcasing the value of integrated LHS-aligned approaches for tangible impact on outcomes. This LHS case study is a practical example for other health conditions and settings to follow suit.

Peer Review reports

Internationally, health systems are facing a crisis, driven by an ageing population, increasing complexity, multi-morbidity, rapidly advancing health technology and rising costs that threaten sustainability and mandate transformation and improvement [ 1 , 2 ]. Although research has generated solutions to healthcare challenges, and the advent of big data and digital health holds great promise, entrenched siloes and poor integration of knowledge generation, knowledge implementation and healthcare delivery between stakeholders, curtails momentum towards, and consistent attainment of, evidence-and value-based care [ 3 ]. This is compounded by the short supply of research and innovation leadership within the healthcare sector, and poorly integrated and often inaccessible health data systems, which have crippled the potential to deliver on digital-driven innovation [ 4 ]. Current approaches to healthcare improvement are also often isolated with limited sustainability, scale-up and impact [ 5 ].

Evidence suggests that integration and partnership across academic and healthcare delivery stakeholders are key to progress, including those with lived experience and their families (referred to here as consumers and community), diverse disciplines (both research and clinical), policy makers and funders. Utilization of evidence from research and evidence from practice including data from routine care, supported by implementation research, are key to sustainably embedding improvement and optimising health care and outcomes. A strategy to achieve this integration is through the Learning Health System (LHS) (Fig.  1 ) [ 2 , 6 , 7 , 8 ]. Although there are numerous publications on LHS approaches [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ], many focus on research perspectives and data, most do not demonstrate tangible healthcare improvement or better health outcomes. [ 6 ]

Monash Learning Health System: The Learn Together for Better Health Framework developed by Monash Partners and Monash University (from Enticott et al. 2021 [ 7 ]). Four evidence quadrants: Q1 (orange) is evidence from stakeholders; Q2 (green) is evidence from research; Q3 (light blue) is evidence from data; and, Q4 (dark blue) is evidence from implementation and healthcare improvement

In developed nations, it has been estimated that 60% of care provided aligns with the evidence base, 30% is low value and 10% is potentially harmful [ 13 ]. In some areas, clinical advances have been rapid and research and evidence have paved the way for dramatic improvement in outcomes, mandating rapid implementation of evidence into healthcare (e.g. polio and COVID-19 vaccines). However, healthcare improvement is challenging and slow [ 5 ]. Health systems are highly complex in their design, networks and interacting components, and change is difficult to enact, sustain and scale up. [ 3 ] New effective strategies are needed to meet community needs and deliver evidence-based and value-based care, which reorients care from serving the provider, services and system, towards serving community needs, based on evidence and quality. It goes beyond cost to encompass patient and provider experience, quality care and outcomes, efficiency and sustainability [ 2 , 6 ].

The costs of stroke care are expected to rise rapidly in the next decades, unless improvements in stroke care to reduce the disabling effects of strokes can be successfully developed and implemented [ 14 ]. Here, we briefly describe the Monash LHS framework (Fig.  1 ) [ 2 , 6 , 7 ] and outline an exemplar case in order to demonstrate how to apply evidence-based processes to healthcare improvement and embed real-world research for optimising healthcare. The Australian LHS exemplar in stroke care has driven nationwide improvement in stroke care since 2007.

An evidence-based Learning Health System framework

In Australia, members of this author group (HT, AJ, JE) have rigorously co-developed an evidence-based LHS framework, known simply as the Monash LHS [ 7 ]. The Monash LHS was designed to support sustainable, iterative and continuous robust benefit of improved clinical outcomes. It was created with national engagement in order to be applicable to Australian settings. Through this rigorous approach, core LHS principles and components have been established (Fig.  1 ). Evidence shows that people/workforce, culture, standards, governance and resources were all key to an effective LHS [ 2 , 6 ]. Culture is vital including trust, transparency, partnership and co-design. Key processes include legally compliant data sharing, linkage and governance, resources, and infrastructure [ 4 ]. The Monash LHS integrates disparate and often siloed stakeholders, infrastructure and expertise to ‘Learn Together for Better Health’ [ 7 ] (Fig.  1 ). This integrates (i) evidence from community and stakeholders including priority areas and outcomes; (ii) evidence from research and guidelines; (iii) evidence from practice (from data) with advanced analytics and benchmarking; and (iv) evidence from implementation science and health economics. Importantly, it starts with the problem and priorities of key stakeholders including the community, health professionals and services and creates an iterative learning system to address these. The following case study was chosen as it is an exemplar of how a Monash LHS-aligned national stroke program has delivered clinical benefit.

Australian Stroke Learning Health System

Internationally, the application of LHS approaches in stroke has resulted in improved stroke care and outcomes [ 12 ]. For example, in Canada a sustained decrease in 30-day in-hospital mortality has been found commensurate with an increase in resources to establish the multifactorial stroke system intervention for stroke treatment and prevention [ 15 ]. Arguably, with rapid advances in evidence and in the context of an ageing population with high cost and care burden and substantive impacts on quality of life, stroke is an area with a need for rapid research translation into evidence-based and value-based healthcare improvement. However, a recent systematic review found that the existing literature had few comprehensive examples of LHS adoption [ 12 ]. Although healthcare improvement systems and approaches were described, less is known about patient-clinician and stakeholder engagement, governance and culture, or embedding of data informatics into everyday practice to inform and drive improvement [ 12 ]. For example, in a recent review of quality improvement collaborations, it was found that although clinical processes in stroke care are improved, their short-term nature means there is uncertainty about sustainability and impacts on patient outcomes [ 16 ]. Table  1 provides the main features of the Australian Stroke LHS based on the four core domains and eight elements of the Learning Together for Better Health Framework described in Fig.  1 . The features are further expanded on in the following sections.

Evidence from stakeholders (LHS quadrant 1, Fig.  1 )

Engagement, partners and priorities.

Within the stroke field, there have been various support mechanisms to facilitate an LHS approach including partnership and broad stakeholder engagement that includes clinical networks and policy makers from different jurisdictions. Since 2008, the Australian Stroke Coalition has been co-led by the Stroke Foundation, a charitable consumer advocacy organisation, and Stroke Society of Australasia a professional society with membership covering academics and multidisciplinary clinician networks, that are collectively working to improve stroke care ( https://australianstrokecoalition.org.au/ ). Surveys, focus groups and workshops have been used for identifying priorities from stakeholders. Recent agreed priorities have been to improve stroke care and strengthen the voice for stroke care at a national ( https://strokefoundation.org.au/ ) and international level ( https://www.world-stroke.org/news-and-blog/news/world-stroke-organization-tackle-gaps-in-access-to-quality-stroke-care ), as well as reduce duplication amongst stakeholders. This activity is built on a foundation and culture of research and innovation embedded within the stroke ‘community of practice’. Consumers, as people with lived experience of stroke are important members of the Australian Stroke Coalition, as well as representatives from different clinical colleges. Consumers also provide critical input to a range of LHS activities via the Stroke Foundation Consumer Council, Stroke Living Guidelines committees, and the Australian Stroke Clinical Registry (AuSCR) Steering Committee (described below).

Evidence from research (LHS quadrant 2, Fig.  1 )

Advancement of the evidence for stroke interventions and synthesis into clinical guidelines.

To implement best practice, it is crucial to distil the large volume of scientific and trial literature into actionable recommendations for clinicians to use in practice [ 24 ]. The first Australian clinical guidelines for acute stroke were produced in 2003 following the increasing evidence emerging for prevention interventions (e.g. carotid endarterectomy, blood pressure lowering), acute medical treatments (intravenous thrombolysis, aspirin within 48 h of ischemic stroke), and optimised hospital management (care in dedicated stroke units by a specialised and coordinated multidisciplinary team) [ 25 ]. Importantly, a number of the innovations were developed, researched and proven effective by key opinion leaders embedded in the Australian stroke care community. In 2005, the clinical guidelines for Stroke Rehabilitation and Recovery [ 26 ] were produced, with subsequent merged guidelines periodically updated. However, the traditional process of periodic guideline updates is challenging for end users when new research can render recommendations redundant and this lack of currency erodes stakeholder trust [ 27 ]. In response to this challenge the Stroke Foundation and Cochrane Australia entered a pioneering project to produce the first electronic ‘living’ guidelines globally [ 20 ]. Major shifts in the evidence for reperfusion therapies (e.g. extended time-window intravenous thrombolysis and endovascular clot retrieval), among other advances, were able to be converted into new recommendations, approved by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council within a few months of publication. Feedback on this process confirmed the increased use and trust in the guidelines by clinicians. The process informed other living guidelines programs, including the successful COVID-19 clinical guidelines [ 28 ].

However, best practice clinical guideline recommendations are necessary but insufficient for healthcare improvement and nesting these within an LHS with stakeholder partnership, enables implementation via a range of proven methods, including audit and feedback strategies [ 29 ].

Evidence from data and practice (LHS quadrant 3, Fig.  1 )

Data systems and benchmarking : revealing the disparities in care between health services. A national system for standardized stroke data collection was established as the National Stroke Audit program in 2007 by the Stroke Foundation [ 30 ] following various state-level programs (e.g. New South Wales Audit) [ 31 ] to identify evidence-practice gaps and prioritise improvement efforts to increase access to stroke units and other acute treatments [ 32 ]. The Audit program alternates each year between acute (commencing in 2007) and rehabilitation in-patient services (commencing in 2008). The Audit program provides a ‘deep dive’ on the majority of recommendations in the clinical guidelines whereby participating hospitals provide audits of up to 40 consecutive patient medical records and respond to a survey about organizational resources to manage stroke. In 2009, the AuSCR was established to provide information on patients managed in acute hospitals based on a small subset of quality processes of care linked to benchmarked reports of performance (Fig.  2 ) [ 33 ]. In this way, the continuous collection of high-priority processes of stroke care could be regularly collected and reviewed to guide improvement to care [ 34 ]. Plus clinical quality registry programs within Australia have shown a meaningful return on investment attributed to enhanced survival, improvements in quality of life and avoided costs of treatment or hospital stay [ 35 ].

Example performance report from the Australian Stroke Clinical Registry: average door-to-needle time in providing intravenous thrombolysis by different hospitals in 2021 [ 36 ]. Each bar in the figure represents a single hospital

The Australian Stroke Coalition endorsed the creation of an integrated technological solution for collecting data through a single portal for multiple programs in 2013. In 2015, the Stroke Foundation, AuSCR consortium, and other relevant groups cooperated to design an integrated data management platform (the Australian Stroke Data Tool) to reduce duplication of effort for hospital staff in the collection of overlapping variables in the same patients [ 19 ]. Importantly, a national data dictionary then provided the common data definitions to facilitate standardized data capture. Another important feature of AuSCR is the collection of patient-reported outcome surveys between 90 and 180 days after stroke, and annual linkage with national death records to ascertain survival status [ 33 ]. To support a LHS approach, hospitals that participate in AuSCR have access to a range of real-time performance reports. In efforts to minimize the burden of data collection in the AuSCR, interoperability approaches to import data directly from hospital or state-level managed stroke databases have been established (Fig.  3 ); however, the application has been variable and 41% of hospitals still manually enter all their data.

Current status of automated data importing solutions in the Australian Stroke Clinical Registry, 2022, with ‘ n ’ representing the number of hospitals. AuSCR, Australian Stroke Clinical Registry; AuSDaT, Australian Stroke Data Tool; API, Application Programming Interface; ICD, International Classification of Diseases; RedCAP, Research Electronic Data Capture; eMR, electronic medical records

For acute stroke care, the Australian Commission on Quality and Safety in Health Care facilitated the co-design (clinicians, academics, consumers) and publication of the national Acute Stroke Clinical Care Standard in 2015 [ 17 ], and subsequent review [ 18 ]. The indicator set for the Acute Stroke Standard then informed the expansion of the minimum dataset for AuSCR so that hospitals could routinely track their performance. The national Audit program enabled hospitals not involved in the AuSCR to assess their performance every two years against the Acute Stroke Standard. Complementing these efforts, the Stroke Foundation, working with the sector, developed the Acute and Rehabilitation Stroke Services Frameworks to outline the principles, essential elements, models of care and staffing recommendations for stroke services ( https://informme.org.au/guidelines/national-stroke-services-frameworks ). The Frameworks are intended to guide where stroke services should be developed, and monitor their uptake with the organizational survey component of the Audit program.

Evidence from implementation and healthcare improvement (LHS quadrant 4, Fig.  1 )

Research to better utilize and augment data from registries through linkage [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ] and to ensure presentation of hospital or service level data are understood by clinicians has ensured advancement in the field for the Australian Stroke LHS [ 41 ]. Importantly, greater insights into whole patient journeys, before and after a stroke, can now enable exploration of value-based care. The LHS and stroke data platform have enabled focused and time-limited projects to create a better understanding of the quality of care in acute or rehabilitation settings [ 22 , 42 , 43 ]. Within stroke, all the elements of an LHS culminate into the ready availability of benchmarked performance data and support for implementation of strategies to address gaps in care.

Implementation research to grow the evidence base for effective improvement interventions has also been a key pillar in the Australian context. These include multi-component implementation interventions to achieve behaviour change for particular aspects of stroke care, [ 22 , 23 , 44 , 45 ] and real-world approaches to augmenting access to hyperacute interventions in stroke through the use of technology and telehealth [ 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 ]. The evidence from these studies feeds into the living guidelines program and the data collection systems, such as the Audit program or AuSCR, which are then amended to ensure data aligns to recommended care. For example, the use of ‘hyperacute aspirin within the first 48 h of ischemic stroke’ was modified to be ‘hyperacute antiplatelet…’ to incorporate new evidence that other medications or combinations are appropriate to use. Additionally, new datasets have been developed to align with evidence such as the Fever, Sugar, and Swallow variables [ 42 ]. Evidence on improvements in access to best practice care from the acute Audit program [ 50 ] and AuSCR is emerging [ 36 ]. For example, between 2007 and 2017, the odds of receiving intravenous thrombolysis after ischemic stroke increased by 16% 9OR 1.06 95% CI 1.13–1.18) and being managed in a stroke unit by 18% (OR 1.18 95% CI 1.17–1.20). Over this period, the median length of hospital stay for all patients decreased from 6.3 days in 2007 to 5.0 days in 2017 [ 51 ]. When considering the number of additional patients who would receive treatment in 2017 in comparison to 2007 it was estimated that without this additional treatment, over 17,000 healthy years of life would be lost in 2017 (17,786 disability-adjusted life years) [ 51 ]. There is evidence on the cost-effectiveness of different system-focussed strategies to augment treatment access for acute ischemic stroke (e.g. Victorian Stroke Telemedicine program [ 52 ] and Melbourne Mobile Stroke Unit ambulance [ 53 ]). Reciprocally, evidence from the national Rehabilitation Audit, where the LHS approach has been less complete or embedded, has shown fewer areas of healthcare improvement over time [ 51 , 54 ].

Within the field of stroke in Australia, there is indirect evidence that the collective efforts that align to establishing the components of a LHS have had an impact. Overall, the age-standardised rate of stroke events has reduced by 27% between 2001 and 2020, from 169 to 124 events per 100,000 population. Substantial declines in mortality rates have been reported since 1980. Commensurate with national clinical guidelines being updated in 2007 and the first National Stroke Audit being undertaken in 2007, the mortality rates for men (37.4 deaths per 100,000) and women (36.1 deaths per 100,0000 has declined to 23.8 and 23.9 per 100,000, respectively in 2021 [ 55 ].

Underpinning the LHS with the integration of the four quadrants of evidence from stakeholders, research and guidelines, practice and implementation, and core LHS principles have been addressed. Leadership and governance have been important, and programs have been established to augment workforce training and capacity building in best practice professional development. Medical practitioners are able to undertake courses and mentoring through the Australasian Stroke Academy ( http://www.strokeacademy.com.au/ ) while nurses (and other health professionals) can access teaching modules in stroke care from the Acute Stroke Nurses Education Network ( https://asnen.org/ ). The Association of Neurovascular Clinicians offers distance-accessible education and certification to develop stroke expertise for interdisciplinary professionals, including advanced stroke co-ordinator certification ( www.anvc.org ). Consumer initiative interventions are also used in the design of the AuSCR Public Summary Annual reports (available at https://auscr.com.au/about/annual-reports/ ) and consumer-related resources related to the Living Guidelines ( https://enableme.org.au/resources ).

The important success factors and lessons from stroke as a national exemplar LHS in Australia include leadership, culture, workforce and resources integrated with (1) established and broad partnerships across the academic-clinical sector divide and stakeholder engagement; (2) the living guidelines program; (3) national data infrastructure, including a national data dictionary that provides the common data framework to support standardized data capture; (4) various implementation strategies including benchmarking and feedback as well as engagement strategies targeting different levels of the health system; and (5) implementation and improvement research to advance stroke systems of care and reduce unwarranted variation in practice (Fig.  1 ). Priority opportunities now include the advancement of interoperability with electronic medical records as an area all clinical quality registry’s programs needs to be addressed, as well as providing more dynamic and interactive data dashboards tailored to the need of clinicians and health service executives.

There is a clear mandate to optimise healthcare improvement with big data offering major opportunities for change. However, we have lacked the approaches to capture evidence from the community and stakeholders, to integrate evidence from research, to capture and leverage data or evidence from practice and to generate and build on evidence from implementation using iterative system-level improvement. The LHS provides this opportunity and is shown to deliver impact. Here, we have outlined the process applied to generate an evidence-based LHS and provide a leading exemplar in stroke care. This highlights the value of moving from single-focus isolated approaches/initiatives to healthcare improvement and the benefit of integration to deliver demonstrable outcomes for our funders and key stakeholders — our community. This work provides insight into strategies that can both apply evidence-based processes to healthcare improvement as well as implementing evidence-based practices into care, moving beyond research as an endpoint, to research as an enabler, underpinning delivery of better healthcare.

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Abbreviations

Australian Stroke Clinical Registry

Confidence interval

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Acknowledgements

The following authors hold National Health and Medical Research Council Research Fellowships: HT (#2009326), DAC (#1154273), SM (#1196352), MFK Future Leader Research Fellowship (National Heart Foundation #105737). The Funders of this work did not have any direct role in the design of the study, its execution, analyses, interpretation of the data, or decision to submit results for publication.

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Helena Teede and Dominique A. Cadilhac contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation, 43-51 Kanooka Grove, Clayton, VIC, Australia

Helena Teede, Emily Callander & Joanne Enticott

Monash Partners Academic Health Science Centre, 43-51 Kanooka Grove, Clayton, VIC, Australia

Helena Teede & Alison Johnson

Stroke and Ageing Research, Department of Medicine, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Monash University, Level 2 Monash University Research, Victorian Heart Hospital, 631 Blackburn Rd, Clayton, VIC, Australia

Dominique A. Cadilhac, Tara Purvis & Monique F. Kilkenny

Stroke Theme, The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Heidelberg, VIC, Australia

Dominique A. Cadilhac, Monique F. Kilkenny & Bruce C.V. Campbell

Department of Neurology, Melbourne Brain Centre, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, VIC, Australia

Bruce C.V. Campbell

Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

School of Health Sciences, Heart and Stroke Program, University of Newcastle, Hunter Medical Research Institute, University Drive, Callaghan, NSW, Australia

Coralie English

School of Medicine and Dentistry, Griffith University, Birtinya, QLD, Australia

Rohan S. Grimley

Clinical Excellence Division, Queensland Health, Brisbane, Australia

John Hunter Hospital, Hunter New England Local Health District and University of Newcastle, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Christopher Levi

School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedicine, Australian Catholic University, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Sandy Middleton

Nursing Research Institute, St Vincent’s Health Network Sydney and and Australian Catholic University, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Stroke Foundation, Level 7, 461 Bourke St, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

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HT: conception, design and initial draft, developed the theoretical formalism for learning health system framework, approved the submitted version. DAC: conception, design and initial draft, provided essential literature and case study examples, approved the submitted version. TP: revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content, approved the submitted version. MFK: revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content, provided essential literature and case study examples, approved the submitted version. BC: revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content, provided essential literature and case study examples, approved the submitted version. CE: revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content, provided essential literature and case study examples, approved the submitted version. AJ: conception, design and initial draft, developed the theoretical formalism for learning health system framework, approved the submitted version. EC: revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content, approved the submitted version. RSG: revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content, provided essential literature and case study examples, approved the submitted version. CL: revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content, provided essential literature and case study examples, approved the submitted version. SM: revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content, provided essential literature and case study examples, approved the submitted version. KH: revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content, provided essential literature and case study examples, approved the submitted version. JE: conception, design and initial draft, developed the theoretical formalism for learning health system framework, approved the submitted version. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Teede, H., Cadilhac, D.A., Purvis, T. et al. Learning together for better health using an evidence-based Learning Health System framework: a case study in stroke. BMC Med 22 , 198 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-024-03416-w

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UCL alumni Nikhit Anilbhai and Sonakshi Senthil reflect on the support they’ve received through UCL Innovation & Enterprise that’s helping them grow an award-winning med-tech business.

17 May 2024

Dr Nikhit Anilbhai and Sonakshi Senthil both had a deep passion for improving healthcare when they came to study as postgraduates at UCL in 2019. Nikhit embarked on an MSc in Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine, and Sonakshi an MSc in Personalised Medicine and Novel Therapies.

By the end of both their master’s, the pair had pooled their ideas and talents to launch Your Cue: an award-winning business that builds finger-based wearables for patients in hospitals. Their technology allows patients’ vital readings, such as heart rate and blood pressure, to be monitored continuously so that any problems can be quickly dealt with.

Nikhit and Sonakshi have been supported to grow their business as part of the Hatchery incubator programme at BaseKX, UCL's dedicated entrepreneurship hub in King's Cross, managed by UCL Innovation & Enterprise.

A business founded during the pandemic

Nikhit: Our journey with Your Cue really came into being when Sonakshi and I took time off from our master’s during the Covid pandemic to go back to India where we’re both from. I started working as a medical officer during the pandemic and saw first hand the frustration that came from not being able to do enough to save my patients.

I later lost my own father to Covid, and I remember saying to Sonakshi at the time: "if only I could have kept a check on his vitals, I could have done something to help save his life."

Saving lives and improving patient care

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With our wearable, hospitals could continuously check everything a nurse might need to monitor on a patient, including heart rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature and blood pressure. We’re introducing new features so we can monitor things like cardiac anomalies, too.

All that information is then uploaded to the cloud and any clinician can access it in real time. Our device also features notifications and alarms to alert healthcare professionals if a patient needs urgent attention.

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Support from UCL Innovation & Enterprise

Nikhit: When we came back to UCL to finish our master’s in 2021, we knew we needed help with this. Our starting point was to enrol ourselves on the Launch programme – now called ‘Build your business or social enterprise’ (run by UCL Innovation & Enterprise). As well as finding out about everything from marketing to legal, we won a cash prize of £500. That small victory pushed us to pursue our goals and we applied for the Hatchery incubator. I remember thinking "wow, someone else believes in our idea, we need to keep going with it now."

Sonakshi: Being part of UCL’s Hatchery incubator programme has been a game-changer. In addition to getting help with the necessary visas we needed as international students, we’ve had free desk space for three years, and been exposed to experts in areas like sales, deck designing, marketing and finance.

The other big benefit is the peer support, and being surrounded by other people building these amazing businesses, too. That’s driven us to achieve a lot more and push ourselves to put ourselves forward for things like competitions to build our exposure with investors.

Winning the 'Hatchery Start-up of the Year'

Nikhit: Winning Hatchery Start-up of the Year 2022 was a crucial early win, as we were struggling for funds then. The £13,000 prize money allowed us to devote the next six months to developing our first proof of concept (POC). We then secured £10,000 from the CapTableTV pitch competition as an equity investment to take things to the second POC stage.

Other highlights have included representing UCL in the Venture Cup in Denmark and China, and winning both those competitions, and myself and Sonakshi have both recently won Top 100 Asians in UK tech awards from Diversity UK.

Where things are up to

Sonakshi: Most recently, we secured a £50,000 Innovate UK grant with support from the Innovate UK Business Growth team, part of UCL Innovation & Enterprise. We’re now using this grant to add additional features into our device.

Once we’ve received the necessary certifications, which we hope to get by the end of 2024, we’ll be running soft pilots with several NHS trusts next. Our intention is to launch in the UK, and in India soon after that.

Advice for budding entrepreneurs

Sonakshi: If I could offer any advice, it would be to say that entrepreneurship can seem like this huge mountain to climb at the beginning. You think to yourself "am I really going to get through all this?" You go into your idea with a lot of excitement, but you have to be resilient. You have to face a lot of rejections and still have the emotional capacity to keep going.

Nikhit: I would add that it’s important to be realistic. One of our biggest wake-up calls was to do with funding. When we started, it looked like it would be easy to raise capital. It actually took us six to eight months to understand the fundraising process as first-time founders, and where to look for investment.

But if you’re passionate about your idea, I truly believe you have every chance of making it a reality at UCL. It’s up to you to harness all the resources on offer. Keep going and keep reaching out. There are many, many people here who’ll want to cheer you on, and help. We’ve had so many people advise us and give their valuable time for free because they believe in what we’re doing. We’re so lucky, and grateful, for that.

Find out more about:

• UCL’s Hatchery startup incubator programme
• entrepreneurship support for students and recent graduates
• The UCL Santander Summer Showcase

Entrepreneur profiles

Vishal kumar, mres student and alice camera founder.

“The facilities at the Hatchery are great and the free office space has been a boost to us. Access to brand and design consultancy and free legal advice have been unbelievably important.”

James Della Valle, MSc Architecture graduate and co-founder of BoxxDocks

“One of the best things about being part of the Hatchery is being surrounded by other UCL entrepreneurs. We ask each other questions, we signpost each other to different bits of support. Having that community is game-changing.”

Read more entrepreneur profiles .

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Practice of law: case studies

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The seven sets of case studies showcased here feature examples of the most innovative work and legal services that lawyers have developed in the Asia-Pacific region for clients, whether operating in the region or globally.

All of the case studies were researched, compiled and ranked by RSGI. “Winner” indicates that the organisation won an FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific award for 2024.

Read the other FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific ‘Best practice case studies’, which showcase the standout innovations made for and by people working in the legal sector:

Business of law In-house

Unlocking capital

Winner: Linklaters Originality: 9; Leadership: 8; Impact: 8; Total: 25 The firm helped advise on the creation of Swap Connect, which allows international investors to tap into China’s onshore interest rate swap market via links with Hong Kong. The initiative, launched May 2023 with the backing of Chinese President Xi Jinping, aims to support Hong Kong as a financial trading hub while delivering a bigger and more efficient derivatives market for China’s own domestic market. It follows the creation of similar “Connect” programmes for stocks and bonds. Lawyers at the firm advised bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing on the design of the Swap Connect clearing link agreement, which allows foreign investors to remotely trade and clear renminbi interest rate swaps to hedge their debt exposure.

A&O Shearman O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24 The firm helped China-backed telecoms company Dito Telecommunity secure a 15-year $3.9bn loan arrangement to fund the rollout of its telecoms network in the Philippines. The long-term financing deal, struck last September, was supported by a group of international banks. The funds raised are to pay for expansion of the network — the launch of which, in 2021, was backed by former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, in an attempt to challenge the historic duopoly of the country’s two dominant suppliers.

Sullivan & Cromwell O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24 The firm advised Japan’s SoftBank on last September’s initial public offering of its UK chip designer, Arm, in the US. The lawyers helped SoftBank acquire an additional 25 per cent of Arm from its Saudi-backed investment partner Vision Fund to obtain full control of Arm ahead of the flotation, which then saw the Japanese company retain 90 per cent of the business while raising about $5bn.

Highly commended

Dechert O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23 The firm advised ACEN, the energy arm of Philippines conglomerate Ayala, on securing project finance for its 24 per cent stake in the $1bn 600-megawatt Monsoon Wind development in Laos. Work has begun on installation of the wind farm, which will export generated electricity to Vietnam under a 25-year offtake agreement.

Hogan Lovells O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 The firm helped Indian car parts maker Samvardhana Motherson International acquire an 81 per cent stake in Japan’s Yachiyo Industry, a subsidiary of Honda Motor. The deal required Honda to buy out minority shareholders in the Tokyo-listed company to allow it to be taken private, with Honda maintaining a minority stake.

Allen & Gledhill O: 7; L: 6; I: 6; Total: 19 The firm acted as Singapore adviser to Bayfront Infrastructure Capital on the complex launch, last September, of infrastructure asset-backed securities valued at $410mn. It worked alongside international counsel Latham & Watkins. The transaction was the fourth such issuance by Bayfront.

Deacons O: 7; L: 6; I: 6; Total: 19 The firm advised asset manager BEA Union Investment on the reclassification of its Asian bond fund as an impact fund last July. The changes, authorised by Hong Kong regulators, will see the renamed Asia Impact Bond Fund primarily invest in bonds backing environmental and social improvement projects.

Responsible business

Winner: Trilegal Originality: 9; Leadership: 8; Impact: 8; Total: 25 The firm advised the education charity SGBS Unnati Foundation on becoming the first organisation to list on India’s Social Stock Exchange in December. The government-sponsored platform — created last year as a sub-category within India’s existing stock exchanges — is designed to help charities and other social enterprises subject to its oversight to raise funds, by strengthening confidence among potential donors and investors.

The lawyers advised Unnati on meeting regulatory conditions to launch the debut fundraising on the exchange, which secured Rs2 crore ($240,000) to finance training for 10,000 underprivileged young people.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24 The pro bono team helped the Hong Kong branch of global children’s charity Plan International to create a safeguarding framework for kindergartens, in 2023. The lawyers advised on the compilation of guidelines, which have been circulated to more than 1,000 kindergartens via a manual and e-learning platform for free.

The initiative also offers tests and accreditation to caregivers. The lack of official guidance on safeguarding had recently been highlighted, publicly, by cases such the prosecution of 34 staff for mistreatment of children in a care home.

Gilbert + Tobin O: 7; L: 10; I: 7; Total: 24 The firm supported the Yes23 campaign, which sought improved constitutional recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through Australia’s 2023 “Voice” referendum. Gilbert +Tobin’s co-founder and chair, Danny Gilbert, co-chaired one of the leading groups campaigning for the change, and the firm helped with fundraising, hosting meetings, and providing administrative and legal support. Early support faded as the proposal failed to secure the majorities required to pass despite government support, but 40 per cent of Australians supported the campaign.

DLA Piper O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22 Lawyers at the firm have represented East Timor pro bono at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and, subsequently, the International Court of Justice to argue for mitigations over the impact of climate change.

The firm advocated for obligations on other states that would still protect the right of East Timor and other small island developing countries to further industrial development, as part of a fairer global transition to net zero greenhouse emissions.

Lander & Rogers O: 7; L: 8; I: 6; Total: 21 As one of the first Australian law firms to commit itself to achieving net zero emissions by 2030, Lander & Rogers supported several initiatives under its “climate and just transition” pro bono programme. Efforts included seconding law firm staff to a number of climate activist and litigation organisations to work pro bono.

Morrison Foerster O: 5; L: 6; I: 8; Total: 19 Marcia Ellis, global co-chair of the firm’s private equity office, worked with a team of associates to support Justice Centre Hong Kong, a charity that advises refugees and asylum seekers. They worked together to develop a public database of case law covering detention of immigrants in the territory. Since its launch in June 2023, the resource has been used by Justice Centre staff, researchers, other campaign groups and immigration lawyers.

Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19 Tokyo English Language Lifeline (Tell), a Japanese philanthropic organisation offering mental health support, was considering closing one of its clinics because rules governing its prescription of medicines looked too ambiguous. But the law firm secured a clarification from regulators that meant it could continue to operate.

Dispute resolution

Winner: MinterEllison Originality: 8; Leadership: 8; Impact: 10; Total: 26 The firm successfully defended Australian media company Nine Entertainment and investigative journalists Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters in a protracted, high-profile, and politically contentious case when they were sued for defamation by Australia’s most decorated living soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith.

In June, the Federal Court found that the lawyers had substantially proved the truth of the allegations contained in articles from 2018 that Roberts-Smith had committed war crimes, including the killing of unarmed civilians in Afghanistan. The lawyers also dealt with challenging secrecy requirements relating to documents and witness testimony.

Hogan Lovells O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24 The firm helped Lego sue Chinese competitor Longteng for infringement of the Danish toymaker’s copyright. The lawyers persuaded a Chinese court to make a judgment based on inspection of a sample of 54 units out of 1.6mn boxes of seized goods. In December, the court in Shanghai ordered Longteng to pay Rmb600mn ($83mn) to Lego and sentenced five individuals to up to nine years in prison.

Numen Law Offices O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23 Lawyers persuaded the High Court of Kerala to issue guidelines for tighter handling of sexually explicit evidence by law enforcement agencies and state courts. The move came after illegal access was gained to visual evidence during proceedings that followed the assault of the firm’s client, Indian actress Bhavana Menon, in 2017.

WongPartnership O: 7; L: 7; I: 8; Total: 22 The firm helped German telecoms group Deutsche Telekom enforce an award in Singapore of $93.3mn plus costs against India over the breach of a bilateral investment treaty, originally granted through arbitration in Geneva. Lawyers persuaded the Singapore Court of Appeal to apply the legal principle of “transnational estoppel”, which prevented India from relitigating claims already rejected by the Swiss court.

Anand and Anand O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 The firm won an interim order for Indian actor Anil Kapoor before the High Court of Delhi when he sued 16 defendants last year for misusing artificial intelligence. They were accused of exploiting his image and voice to create deepfakes for commercial gain, in ringtones and other merchandise. The case has led to increased scrutiny over the legality of deepfake practices in India.

Rajah & Tann Singapore O: 7; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 20 The firm’s lawyers defended Chinese tech company NetEase Games against an application for an interim injunction in Singapore in December 2022 to force withdrawal of a video game from sale.

Rival US video developer Riot Games had claimed NetEase’s game Hyper Front infringed the copyright of its similar Valorant combat game, as part of a campaign of action in several jurisdictions. However, NetEase did withdraw the game from the market last April, following legal challenges in various jurisdictions.

Restructuring

Winner: Sidley Austin Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 8; Total: 25 The firm advised Chinese developer Sunac through a $10bn offshore debt restructuring last year, one of the first of its kind among China’s distressed property companies, following a widespread wave of defaults since 2021. It narrowed down the company’s complex creditor structure to a single class by use of a court-led scheme of arrangement and refinanced the existing debt into convertible bonds — in line with Hong Kong regulation.

Clifford Chance O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24 The firm advised Italian construction group WeBuild on the rescue and restructuring of Clough, the troubled Australian building company, last year. The lawyers helped strike a deal with Clough’s administrator and creditors, preventing the collapse of the business. This required the renegotiation of hundreds of contracts in a 12-week period and saved more than 1,100 jobs. Among the projects saved were Snowy 2.0, a multibillion-dollar hydro power extension project.

Pinsent Masons O: 8; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 23 The firm advised the International Finance Corporation, the investment arm of the World Bank, on its $67mn financing of a transport terminal in Laos. This involved separating the contractual agreements of the project in the country’s capital from a wider logistics development. The deal, which closed in December, is designed to divide the project into two “bankable” concessions to encourage further additional funding.

Morgan Lewis O: 9; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 23 The firm advised PNG Air, Papua New Guinea’s second-largest domestic airline, in securing a vital writedown of debts under a court-approved creditor scheme to avoid bankruptcy. The lawyers teamed up with other advisers to secure backing for the restructuring, formally approved in December, through which major creditors swapped debt for equity in the business.

Rajah & Tann Singapore O: 8; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 22 The firm worked as lead counsel for DeFi Payments following the collapse of its crypto exchange, Vauld, in July 2022 when a surge of withdrawals by customers forced it to reveal a $70mn shortfall of funds. Lawyers worked alongside new management on a court-supervised scheme approved in August last year, to retrieve what remains of its assets and provide customers with the means to retrieve part of the value of funds originally invested.

Corrs Chambers Westgarth O: 8; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 21 The firm advised Mineral Resources on last year’s acquisition of the Bald Hill lithium mine in Western Australia, for A$260mn including assumed debt, after its previous owner went into administration four years earlier. The lawyers helped strike the deal by using independent experts to value the mine — despite hopes among some former shareholders of a higher premium.

Science and technology

Winner: Trilegal Originality: 8; Leadership: 8; Impact: 9; Total: 25 The firm drafted a policy for India’s Open Network for Digital Commerce, a government-backed scheme designed to encourage ecommerce expansion and competition. The network aims to connect different platforms through technology, enabling all buyers and sellers to transact with each other regardless of which app they are on.

The scheme was created by India’s commerce ministry to encourage small traders to move their businesses online and promote competition with established platform providers. The policy is designed to be fit for future regulatory changes.

MinterEllison O: 7; L: 8; I: 9; Total: 24 The firm helped Genomical, an Australian genomics data collaboration between hospitals and academic groups, become a commercial enterprise. The firm devised a structure to balance the interests of investors with stakeholder control over product development. It structured shareholder rights and negotiated intellectual property rights to take account of the platform’s potential use by hospitals around Australia for genetic tests and other medical applications.

Sidley Austin O: 8; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 23 The firm represented Chinese chip developer BaTeLab in the vetting process for listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange in December. The lawyers drew on their drafting of the legal prospectus and specialist knowledge of the semiconductor industry to inform the HKEX about the company and its products.

Tilleke & Gibbins O: 6; L: 7; I: 8; Total: 21 The Thai firm’s local expertise helped global tech companies Amazon and Google navigate foreign investment restrictions to take part, alongside Microsoft, in investing $8.5bn to build data centres in Thailand.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20 The firm helped telecoms operator Reliance Jio secure financing to buy equipment worth over $2.bn from Sweden’s Ericsson through a loan facility with several banks. Syndicated loans of its scale are rare in India, requiring the lawyers to liaise closely with regulators.

Anand and Anand O: 7; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 20 The firm helped US tech groups Microsoft and Amazon pursue a case against an India-based scam that involved impersonating support staff and defrauding customers of both companies. The lawyers convinced India’s Central Bureau of Investigation to register this as a rare joint case.

Winner: Morgan Lewis Originality: 8; Leadership: 8; Impact: 9; Total: 25 The firm assisted Singapore-based global port operator PSA International in setting up a joint venture with Kazakhstan’s state-owned railway operator, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy.

To satisfy PSA’s preference, the business is subject to the AIFC Court, an independent jurisdiction following English common law based in the Kazakh capital Astana that is separate from the country’s domestic judicial system.

The combined entity, KPMC, was unveiled last May and aims to improve rail route connections and trade flows from China and the rest of Asia to Europe via Kazakhstan.

Gilbert + Tobin O: 9; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 24 The firm advised Sigma Healthcare in striking a proposed reverse takeover deal with its larger Australian pharmacy rival, Chemist Warehouse. Under the terms of the deal, announced in December, shareholders in privately owned Chemist Warehouse would hold an 85 per cent stake in the combined business, which would take on the Australian Securities Exchange listing of Sigma and have an indicative market capitalisation of A$8.8bn.

The company obtained “in principle” advice from the ASX that it would not need to repeat compliance with the exchange’s admission and quotation requirements following its effective takeover by the larger Chemist Warehouse. The deal remains subject to approval by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Dechert O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23 The firm advised Capital Square Partners on its merger with Basil Technology Partners in 2023. The deal created a merged fund valued at $700mn that provides investors with access to a larger pool of technology assets, or the ability to cash out of original investments. The assets are spread across multiple jurisdictions in south-east Asia and it has become one of the largest technology funds in Asia.

Nishimura & Asahi O: 8; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 23 The firm advised Toshiba, the Japanese electronics conglomerate, on reverting to private ownership following 74 years as a public company and, latterly, eight years of accounting and governance turmoil.

The lawyers helped to secure a $15bn offer from a consortium led by private equity firm Japanese Industrial Partners, following a protracted sales process that paved the way for the country’s biggest ever take-private deal.

Ensuring transparency with the shareholders and encouraging competition among bidders was crucial in concluding the sale of the business, given the heightened scrutiny of Toshiba prompted by the recent controversies.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 The firm helped Zurich Insurance acquire an enlarged majority stake in Indian insurer Kotak Mahindra General Insurance for $488mn. The proposed stake rose from 51 per cent plus additional considerations to 70 per cent outright, requiring the lawyers to design a structure to comply with regulatory limits on foreign ownership of Indian insurers. If the deal goes ahead, it will represent the largest foreign investment into India’s non-life insurance market.

Resolüt Partners O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20 The firm advised Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC on the creation of a joint venture with Genus Power Infrastructure, an Indian smart meter maker. GIC holds 74 per cent, with Genus holding the remainder of the business, which is committing $2bn in capital to supply smart metering across India.

Fintech and digital assets

Winner: DLA Piper Originality: 8; Leadership: 8; Impact: 9; Total: 25 A team of lawyers based in Hong Kong helped Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (Vara) create a compliance framework for all cryptocurrency and other digital asset businesses. Lawyers worked with the emirate’s regulator to draft a rule book aimed at promoting Dubai as a hub for cryptocurrency investment while ensuring consumer protection. By April 2023, the regulator had granted 19 licences.

Allen & Gledhill O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24 The firm advised Singapore-based global carbon exchange Climate Impact X ahead of its first trading day, in June 2023. The venture — which aims to establish Singapore as a regional hub that can challenge other global exchanges in voluntary carbon emission trading — is backed by Singapore Exchange, state investor Temasek, and the banks DBS, Standard Chartered and Mizuho. The exchange aims to attract international carbon traders keen to buy credits created by the accredited projects designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Ashurst and Linklaters O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24 When the Hong Kong government issued a $750mn green, multi-currency digital bond, Linklaters acted for global bank HSBC, and Ashurst represented its blockchain platform HSBC Orion, where the bond is hosted. Lawyers from both firms liaised with regulators and helped redesign the bond documentation to reflect its use of blockchain.

The lawyers ensured the hosting digital platform was directly connected to Hong Kong’s central clearing house so investors could subscribe to the bond without having to open new accounts.

Baker McKenzie O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23 In November 2023, the firm helped Singapore’s DBS Bank, Switzerland’s UBS, and Japan’s SBI Digital Asset Holdings to structure the world’s first cross-border repo and natively-issued digital bond fully executed and settled on a public blockchain. The transaction, which was sponsored by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, aimed to test the feasibility of applications in asset tokenisation and decentralised finance deploying distributed ledger technology.

Clifford Chance O: 8; L: 8; I: 6; Total: 22 The fintech team advised on Singapore’s first live cross-border transaction using tokenised deposits between financial services company JPMorgan and Japanese digital asset service provider SBI Digital Asset Holdings, in November 2022. The lawyers contributed to the development of new regulation that clarifies that these tokenised deposits will not be classed as securities.

Howse Williams O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21 The firm helped Tykhe Capital investment group win approval from the Hong Kong securities regulator to tokenise a real estate asset fund through a subsidiary, Pioneer Asset Management. The rarity of tokenised real estate asset funds in the region meant lawyers had to show how it complied with existing regulation. The transaction aims to set a blueprint for future tokenisation projects in Hong Kong.

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