Sanusi’s track record of identifying particular niches and developing the right kind of products for them has worked wonders. From soft coffee candy to two-in-one facial cleansers, Kino paved a path of its own in introducing product categories that have been a tremendous success in the market.

Today, Kino has 17 in-house consumer brands from food and beverage to personal care and pharmaceuticals, seven of which are known market leaders. For instance, Kino’s pioneering hair vitamin product, Ellips, had 77 per cent market share in 2014, while its beverage brands Cap Kaki Tiga and Cap Panda covered 46 per cent of the remedy drinks market in the same year.

The pillar of Kino’s competitive strength has been in finding segmented markets on which to lay strong foundations for growth. “We do not follow other companies’ products or produce ‘me too’ items. Instead, we concentrate on categories that will grow in the future and those that we believe will have a strong potential for further development,” Sanusi says.

To oversee the product development process from idea generation through to product launch, Kino formed the Kinovation Team consisting of top industry specialists including food technologists, chemists, chemical engineers, biologists, food nutritionists and pharmacists. The group works closely with laboratories worldwide, including those in Hong Kong, India, Singapore and Switzerland.

“We build strength on our proven product development method,” Sanusi says. “We continue to dig down to see which categories will be saleable in the future. It becomes like a habit, as success has become a pattern for us. We are happy with what is happening, and our progress continues to build up from strength to strength.”

The Kino group is well recognised in personal care, but it also operates in three other booming segments of beverage, food and pharmaceuticals. Kino began as a local distributor company when it was founded by Sanusi in 1991 as Duta Lestari Sentratama (DLS). This wholly owned company has grown to have a wide network of distributors. It has a sales force of 1,803 and owns 29 branches located across Java, Bali and Makassar. Through its branches and local distributors, DLS handles Kino’s distribution throughout Indonesia.

In the food segment, Kino has successfully partnered with Morinaga & Company, a confectionery manufacturer founded in Tokyo in 1899. With almost one million outlets, Kino products are sold in one out of every three stores in Indonesia.

Kino is also active in the regional market in Southeast Asia. In 2003 and 2004, it expanded sales of its own branded products in Malaysia and the Philippines before entering Vietnam in 2013. Kino plans to set up similar offices in Singapore, Brunei and Myanmar, where the company’s products are already being sold. Kino will also begin testing the markets of Thailand and Cambodia next year.

On the local front, Kino is open to collaborate with global companies that would like to enter Indonesia with their brands. Kino is on the lookout for win-win joint ventures involving products that can bring value to the local market. “We are looking for strong brands and well-established global players who are interested to share our vision,” Sanusi says. “We welcome partnerships in manufacturing with companies that want to invest in Indonesia for a long-term period. We see enormous potential for many products here and we can add value to the development of the FMCG market in the country.”