OTC / HEALTHCARE

Health and wellness continue to be trends that allow significant growth to be expected across all consumer health/consumer care segments in the future.

Health expertise in society as a consequence of the pandemic and the openness of Generation Z to nutrition and health topics is continuously growing. As a result, so is the readiness to take proactive responsibility for your own health.

While this growth trend will continue to be relevant across all channels in the future, e-commerce (or d2c) will gain significance in all segments – creating different challenges for the relevant market players.

In the case of the heavily fragmented market of often medium-sized consumer-care companies that distribute via mass-market channels, this will involve developing and expanding their own digital expertise. M&A strategies in the growing online-start-up scene focusing on cosmetics and personal care are gaining importance here, including with regard to urgently needed in-house platforms.

Companies with established online platforms are continuously expanding their online services with a focus on personalised health-care services. These are an important instrument to generate differentiation and customer loyalty across all product categories in a densely occupied market.

Almost all companies in the C-health / C-care industry have portfolios that largely consist of brands that tend to be nationally or regionally known. The further internationalisation of brands that have been successful on their home market for a long time is a core issue facing the industry.

For most German SMEs in the C-health / C-care industry in particular, it will be all about ensuring the relevance of their traditional brands and using the multi-faceted opportunities offered to them by e-commerce.

This requires brave strategies, and investments in skills and abilities that are not sufficiently available in-house. This will also be associated with a sustainable change in the corporate culture towards more customer focus and stronger performance orientation.