Sector Panel – Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)

Rodrigo Costa, Marketing Director at Sumol+Compal, André Semedo, General Manager RB Heath, and Filipe Bonina, Marketing Director at Central de Cervejas, with a group of students of The Lisbon MBA International 2020 Class.
Standing from left to right: Erik Brits (student), Rodrigo Costa (Marketing Director at Sumol+Compal), André Semedo (General Manager RB Heath), Mirella Ribeirinho (student), Sumantra Basu (student), Liam Costello (student), Cláudia Lucas (Marketing Director at The Lisbon MBA), Mariana Tavares (student), Alban Auffray (student), Fernando Moura (student), Nuno Figueiredo (student), Filipe Bonina (Marketing Director at Central de Cervejas), Pedro Correia de Barros (student), João Batista da Silva (student), Tiago Castro Freire (student), Patrick Henrici (student), Andrea Jacome (student), Anna Chernukhina (student).
Front row: Rachel Welch (student), Paula Lourenço (Careers and Corporate Director at the Lisbon MBA), Ricardo Braz (student).
The fast moving consumer goods industry (FMCG) has long been an attractive sector to work so The Lisbon MBA invited André Semedo, General Manager at Reckitt-Benckinser, Filipe Bonina, Marketing Director at Central de Cervejas and Rodrigo Costa, Marketing and Trade Marketing Director at Sumol+Compal, to share with our students what challenges is the sector facing as consumer behaviors shift and the channel landscape changes and what their personal career experiences are in this sector.
Our panelist presented their ideas and involved our students in discussions about different subjects from which we would like to highlight the more relevant ones. One of the main pressures facing the sector is how new generations approach brands. Millennials consumers are more likely than previous generations to prefer brands that are not preferred by the general population and they prefer not to shop in mass channels.
It was also discussed how consumers are getting more complex as we’re moving toward a more educated and knowledgeable consumer base with different spending patterns. Consumers seem increasingly focused on where products are sourced from, child labor in product development, supply chain transparency, sustainability, and other ethical matters.
Digital is revolutionizing the sector and it was anticipated that companies that learn faster how to engage with customers based on data will be the ones winning the game. Amazon and Alibaba seem to be leading the way, but for most companies there is still a way to go in embracing digital, especially in adopting truly data-driven marketing and sales practices.
For the panelists it was generally assumed that an international career is desirable if you want to move up the ladder in multinational companies. Portugal is considered a good incubator for those who have the ambition to lead a country or to have an European role because there is fierce competition and it is a complex market.
As to the required competencies, soft skills, such as resilience and agility come top of mind. By the very nature of the industry, things move very quickly and you need to be able to make decisions, provide great service and think clearly in a fast-paced environment. In practice this means that you need to have a wide range of traits including adaptability and organisation. However, good skills across disciplines and awareness about what goes on in the world can boost your employability as businesses are often looking for people who understand the bigger picture of the sector they operate within. In addition, the ability to align common sense with insights from data is crucial. Increasingly if managers aren’t able to understand insights into the marketplace, they can find themselves struggling.
Thank you André Semedo, Filipe Bonina and Rodrigo Costa for taking the time to share your knowledge and insights with the Lisbon MBA students.
Sector Panel is an initiative by The Lisbon MBA Católica|Nova’s Career Management Center, where students get the opportunity to learn about different industries and the skills needed to approach the industry and to network with executives from that industry.