read original article

more Portuguese stories?

The jury included prominent members of the Portuguese sales and marketing community, including Peter Higgs, director-general of the ADVP, says Diário Económico. "These are 9 success stories", Higgs tells the paper. They were selected for having shown "commercial leadership, having an innovative strategy well executed."

Perhaps most prominent among the winners is the national airline TAP, which not many people would connect with the description 'success story'. In the year 2000, it recorded a loss of €150 million whereas today it is running a profit, with passenger numbers in the first 4 months of the year up over 15%. Peter Higgs says that this 'miracle' was the result of a number of strategies the company put in place. "TAP decided to concentrate on taking Europeans - not just Portuguese - to Brazil.", he says

Among the other winners, TMN, the mobile phone company, Higgs says, has always been a pioneer but, after having concluded a thorough market analysis, decided that the market was reaching a phase of maturity. By finding new ways to motivate consumers, principally through effective database management and new tariff plans, it was able to boost market share to 52% in 2003. Higgs then went on to detail each of the other winners, of which three are selected here:

TAP

In the words of Peter Higgs, the case of Tap-Air Portugal should be considered a 'miracle'. The company has been able to capture new clients with a competitive offering over recent years, enabling it to turn a loss into a profit.

The airline also turned around its image in Brazil, to the point that it may at one point take a 20% stake in the national airline, Varig, and increased the number of passengers carried between that country and Portugal by an average of 25% between 2001 and 2003.

Unilever/ Lipton Ice Tea

Lipton Ice Tea's 2002 results were 5% below target, leading the brand to adopt a new strategy. By reinventing itself, Peter Higgs says, it was able to turn the situation around completely.

Various studies led it to understand that the brand had advantages and disadvantages deriving from the name of the category in which it competes. The company decided to turn the situation around by innovating, launching Lipton Ice Tea Green and thus taking advantage of the popularity of green tea. Lipton also invested in the flavoured mineral water market, which at that time hardly existed in Portugal and combined these launches with a series of promotions.

Soltrópico

Higgs describes the tour operator Soltropico as being 'courageous' for having opened up the Egyptian market on the eve of the 2nd Gulf War. Soltropico's charter flights to the pyramids turned out to be one of the tourism successes of summer 2003.

The company's strategy, he says, combined the cultural pull of Egypt with the attraction of the beaches. "They created an extremely appealing market at very competitive proces", he says. Previously seen as an expensive, elitis destination, Egypt welcomes 10,000 additional tourists as a result and the operatoin made Soltropico the brand of reference in the sector, while increasing sales by 38.5%.