Stronger solutions are needed to restore Reckitt Benckiser's dazzle The market reacted positively yesterday to the company's results and buffed-up strategy but that may have been relief that the situation was not worse than feared. There's been nervousness over the consumer goods group since the previous chief executive, Bart Becht, announced his decision to leave last year. That came out of the blue and disturbed the company's long-term supporters. Meanwhile, the historic out- performance of the shares is starting to unwind. The new man, Rakesh Kapoor, has announced a sales strategy borrowed from the likes of Unilever and Diageo (more revenue from emerging markets and more focus on fewer "power brands"), while announcing a reshuffling of geographic reporting lines. There's enough change to justify labelling the next 12 months a "year of transition," which should make comparisons suitably cloudy for another year or two. Kapoor hopes that by then, cost-cutting to reinvest in marketing and advertising will have started to shift the company away from its relative over- dependence on Europe and North America to give higher-growth markets greater emphasis. So far, so orthodox. It's clear that Becht was slow to refocus the business on the southern and eastern hemispheres. The likes of Unilever have stolen a march and that's Kapoor's biggest challenge. Another "revolution" he announced was merging Europe and North America into one reporting line, on the basis that these markets are the same. They certainly have pedestrian growth rates in common, but culturally there remain significant differences. Growth rates may be low but the last thing Kapoor can afford is to lose any ground in these large, if dull, markets. His changes are a reaction to the company's problems rather than to newly-discovered opportunities and are formulated from a recognition of its weaknesses rather than its strengths.