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Nick Shreiber is President and CEO of the TetraPak Group, one of the world’s leading companiesin processing and packaging solutions for food,with special emphasis on aseptic technology.Tetra Pak is privately held, is present in 180countries, and has global revenues of abouteight billion dollars.

During his fifteen years with the company Nickhas held a number of positions, and wasPresident of Tetra Pak's business in North,Central and South America prior to becomingCEO. He has been on the company's global man-agement team since 1991.

Nick is a member of the Tetra Laval GroupBoard, the Foundation Board of IMDInternational Institute for ManagementDevelopment in Lausanne, Switzerland, and theInternational Advisory Board of IESE in Spain.He is also a current or past member of Boardsin USA and Mexico, including Cone MillsCorporation, The Carter Center and theGoizueta Business School at Emory University,among others.

Prior to Tetra Pak, Nick was a partner withMcKinsey & Co. with responsibilities in Spain,the UK and throughout Latin America. Nickalso has management and operating experiencein the footwear and textile industries in LatinAmerica.

Shreiber is Argentine by birth, and Russian-British by descent (his father was from St.Petersburg, his mother from Scotland). He grad-uated Summa Cum Laude in IndustrialEngineering at the Instituto Tecnológico deBuenos Aires. In 1975 he earned his Master inBusiness Administration at IMD in Lausanne,Switzerland.

Nick has been married for thirty years, and hastwo sons. His extra-curricular interests are thepiano (Classical music) tennis, sailing and play-ing Bridge.

Interview

Mühlhäuser: Ruben Rausing, the founder of Tetra Paksaid that the forces of innovation are what keeps a compa-ny alive. Is this still the guideline of developments atTetra Pak?

Shreiber: Rausing’s statement is still a valid one. We viewcompetition as healthy – it keeps us focussed and helps usto keep innovation alive. Our customers, too, play a keyrole as we are always working to become and remain theirpreferred supplier. But, in addition, innovation from newtechnologies yields opportunities not perceived by com-petitors nor customers. Unfulfilled needs and new tech-nologies are other drivers. Tetra Recart, our newretortable carton for solid food is a good example of a newtechnology driving innovation. It is the first carton pack-age of this kind on the market but no one was pushing usinto that arena – we have become the “first mover”. Theresult is that we are today challenging the can in an areaoutside of our traditional core businesses.

Mühlhäuser: Tetra Pak is a global innovation leader. Howdoes the company manage the innovation process inorder to identify unfulfilled market needs?

Shreiber: We are increasingly turning towards processorientation – although not process organisation. Therehas been a massive shift in the way we manage innova-tion during the past few years. We moved away from hav-ing a plethora of wild and scattered ideas, many of whichdid not really result in successful new products.

Today we have a fairly disciplined process that takes in awide selection of ideas at an initial stage and narrowsthem down quickly through a series of “toll-gates” whichweed out those product ideas that do not meet the stan-dards set for them. We implemented this as an innovationprocess that starts with the Chief Technology Officer(CTO) in our company. It required the training of literallyhundreds of people in our organisation, not only thoseinvolved in new development. We also seek input from

Nick Shreiber talks to Hubertus M. Mühlhäuser

Innovation at Tetra Pak – Managing the Paradox of Creativity and Discipline

Innovation from newtechnologies yieldsopportunities not per-ceived by competitorsnor customers.

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outside the product development area, including otherparts of our organisation, customers and consumers. Wehave been working on this innovation process for severalyears – it is not simple, but it does yield dividends.

Mühlhäuser: So what was the biggest “hurdle”?

Shreiber: From a mental point of view we had to learnthat we must manage the paradox of creativity and disci-pline. Managing paradoxes is one of the six leadershipchallenges that we stress in our company. The innovationprocess is an example of how we have managed toincrease the creation of new ideas, and, at the same time,increase the discipline with which we select the "win-ners". It really boils down to having a structured process,with a CTO who is member of the company's top manage-ment team.

Mühlhäuser: Many companies claim that they don’t havean innovation culture therefore innovation processes donot fall on fertile grounds. What came first at Tetra Pak?How do you address the cultural dimension of innova-tion?

Shreiber: We have always liked to think of ourselves as aninnovative company. But in the past we were not always asdisciplined with our innovative ideas as we should havebeen. So it could happen that some ideas might not gothrough a proper filtering process. On the other hand wemight have left out many other ideas simply because theydidn’t come from the “right” source. The innovationprocess helped us channel all development ideas in anobjective and systematic manner. I believe we were aninnovative company but without a proper process. Aninnovation process will always improve a company’s abili-ty to create and deliver new products, no matter whattheir starting point.

Mühlhäuser: Do you think formalising an innovationprocess could have become a problem if Tetra Pak had notbeen an innovative company right from the start? Whatcan other companies learn here?

Shreiber: An innovation process will always improve acompany’s ability to create and deliver new products, nomatter what their starting point. The innovation processtook us to a new level. I think you can do that for anycompany. And how far up, or how much progress theymake with innovation, will depend on their innovationculture and the drive from the top. As a company foundedby an entrepreneur, Ruben Rausing, we also encourage aculture of entrepreneurship to ensure that new and dif-ferent ideas are given the room to flourish.

Mühlhäuser: Innovation is also the management of intangibles. How is knowledge managed at Tetra Pak?

Shreiber: In a variety of ways, formal and informal ones.The formal ways – the ones that work best for us – are in-house, like the Tetra Pak Academy in collaboration withthe IMD (International Institute for ManagementDevelopment) in Lausanne. The Academy is an excellentforum for senior management to exchange ideas aboutbest practices because we invariably bring people fromdifferent parts of our organisation and different geo-graphic areas to our courses. Another formal way hasbeen through websites and intranet sites to deposit ideas,or search for ideas. It has worked well for some areas suchas Customer Satisfaction and World Class Manufacturing.

Mühlhäuser: What tools do you use besides Internet andintranet applications?

Shreiber: We are pretty good at networking. Just imagine:we have 20,000 employees and the amount of interchangebetween people from different disciplines is amazing.That has always been part of our culture.

Mühlhäuser: Looking at geographic expansion as anotherpath for growth next to innovation: In which regions doyou see Tetra Pak expanding the most in the next years?

Shreiber: We actually are seeing growth opportunities inmost corners of the world, but at different paces. Where Isee us growing most is in Asia, particularly in China,

We had to learn thatwe must manage theparadox of creativityand discipline.

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An innovation processwill always improve acompany’s ability tocreate and deliver newproducts, no matterwhat their startingpoint.

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Russia, East Europe, North America and parts of LatinAmerica. But constant innovation in our product portfoliomeans that more traditional areas such as WesternEurope are also experiencing growth.

Mühlhäuser: So how do you keep up the speed?

Shreiber: There are two central elements, closely linkedwith one another. The first is one of our core values: long-term perspective. The second is that we are privatelyowned by shareholders that have a long-term perspective.Take China, as an example, which is the first market inwhich we are achieving sales exceeding 10 billion pack-ages a year. This success did not come overnight. Thesame can be said for Russia. In both markets we hadorganisations – and even factories – long before the mar-ket had developed. We try to stay ahead of competition,anticipating and driving changes in the market.

Mühlhäuser: Are services a driver of Tetra Pak’s growthpath? How do you address and manage services? Howmuch growth do you see coming from it?

Shreiber: We will never be a bank or an insurance compa-ny because we live by selling industrial products and solu-tions. For us there is a rather blurred line between servic-es and products. What we do is try to sit down with ourcustomers and address their problems and opportunities,in order to develop the right solution. We are very much aproduct driven company with services to help our cus-tomers find solutions.

Mühlhäuser: What do you do to attract the best employ-ees and does the innovative image of Tetra Pak help youachieve that?

Shreiber: We are an industrial business-to-business com-pany, not a consumer goods one, so our name is not somuch in the public eye. There are several ways we try andovercome this: we work closely with certain universities,we participate actively in industrial forums, we work withexecutive recruiters, and so on. I would say that withinour industry, we are well known. We have been fairly suc-cessful in recruitment, and also in retention as we have

low staff turnover. Also, we recently introduced a newmotto, ‘protects what’s good’, that works across the wholevalue chain and speaks to positive attributes for con-sumers and employees alike. With over 100 billion pack-ages sold this year, this is equivalent to 15 packages perperson on the planet so we are certainly a part of every-day life.

Mühlhäuser: Thanks for sharing insights with our read-ers. One last question: what is next on the agenda? Whatare the future surprises and innovations that we canexpect from Tetra Pak?

Shreiber: We have recently enhanced our vision – wecommit to making food safe and available everywhere -and also our mission statement. What I believe we have todo is to deploy the magnificent product portfolio we havetoday, which is the result of a long track record of innova-tion. Looking into the future, we are focussing on aseptictechnology while not forgetting the enormous market forchilled products, and we will move gradually into non-liq-uid foods. We still have a couple of surprises up oursleeve!

Mühlhäuser: Nick, I would like to thank you sincerely inthe name of our readers for this interview.

The Core Values of Tetra Pak

➝ Freedom with Accountability

➝ Partnership with Customers,Suppliers and Colleagues

➝ Long-term Perspective

➝ Innovation and Creativity

➝ Commitment and Fun

We are very much aproduct driven compa-ny with services tohelp our customersfind solutions.

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With over 100 billionpackages sold thisyear, this is equivalentto 15 packages per person on the planetso we are certainly apart of everyday life.

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