Ashraf Abushady: Liquid assets

Ashraf Abushady, Masafi's Egyptian CEO, has only been in the senior position for slightly over a year, yet he is the man widely credited with driving the company's 40% revenue increase over the past half decade. Having joined the organisation six years ago as General Manager for Sales and Marketing before being given responsibility for the IT, Manufacturing and Finance divisions a couple of years later, he has pushed forward an ambitious brand extension and diversification plan that is beginning to reap big dividends.

Masafi is a name synonymous with bottled water in the UAE. What local consumers often fail to realise is the two-fold growth that the company has undergone. The first is a massive diversification into flavoured waters, fruit juices and even tissue paper. The second is the geographical reach that the group now boasts.

Established in 1976, a time when very few local businesses were already in operation, the company last year celebrated its 30th anniversary. From its primary manufacturing facility in the mountainous region of Ras Al Khaimah, (Masafi is the name of the closest village), the company now exports over 30% of its product to Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Morocco and even further afield to Germany, the UK, Djibouti and Japan.

In Japan alone the company's goal is to reach sales of 18 million litres this year. "We are not just a UAE company, 80% of our business is from the Gulf and the Middle East but we are aggressively available in Japan for our bottled water and soon we will have the flavoured waters and juices there. Our intention is to be seen as a ‘multinational.'" More impressively, in the majority of these markets the group has had a presence for over 20 years. Meanwhile, the push for international market share continues with Masafi eyeing Africa and Taiwan and Australasia as possible ventures for the near future.

Just as we prepare to sit down for the interview Abushady excuses himself; tickets are being booked for a flight that evening to finalise some expansion plans abroad and he just has to make sure that all is ready. This ‘hands-on' feel permeates our meeting, as well as a thorough knowledge of each individual product and their sales and distribution figures at his fingertips, Abushady is filled with a nervous energy. It is almost as though he feels that he is part of a race and every second spent sitting is one where an opportunity might be missed or a competitor might start to make some gains. And make no mistake, the regional bottled water business is far more competitive than most would believe. By 2009 bottled water sales in the UAE alone should exceed 1 billion litres and the region's consumers are being targeted by the large multinationals, as well as local firms.

"We are the market leaders; today Masafi is the generic name for bottled water," Abushady says. This is not a boast, more just the relaying of a fact (he fails to mention the enormous role the company's marketing has played in this - the group even won an award for its simplistic, yet effective ‘Fi Masafi' campaign).

The company has worked on its infrastructure and invested heavily to keep it in this position; the production plant was upgraded in 1999 at a cost of approximately US$16.5m, while US$11m was put into producing and marketing its line of fruit juices.

Expanding on these figures Abushady continues: "Because of that we now have around a 43% market share of the bottled water business, but over the last three years we've also tried to reposition ourselves and move away from being simply a water company into being a total food and beverage provider." The investment in the manufacturing infrastructure has also enabled Masafi to expand its portfolio into the business-to-business sector by selling pre-form bottles and bottle caps to competitors, which accounts for a staggering 8% of the organisation's revenue.

Once he has started it is hard to rein him in, and his enthusiasm for his vision of the company's future is evident as the numbers continue to pour forth: "In May of last year we introduced Masafi juice, and now we're one of the top five in that category (with almost 5% market share). Earlier this year we successfully introduced our flavoured water and, according to an AC Nielsen audit, we now have around a 70% market share of the non-carbonated flavoured water category, followed by Volvic."

In the coming months the company will also be announcing its entry into the bulk water market, which totals 40% of the industry in terms of value. When asked why they have stayed outside of a sector with so much potential, Abushady is specific: "For us it just wasn't the right decision three years ago to look into entering this fast-growing segment. Now the technology is there and we're ready."

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