Brabeck had to identify new growth opportunities to realize his goal of 4 percent internal growth. Organic growth in mature markets could only be reached by strengthening Nestlés innovative capacity. This approach required significant investments in the group's R&D and marketing capabilities. Because Nestlé has always been a model of rock-solid accounting, Brabeck intended to generate the massive cash flows required for a large-scale growth offensive by improving the company's capital efficiency. His strategy was to force the businesses to become more efficient by cutting back on their investment budgets: "The investment budget is declining. Our efforts must switch to maximizing existing assets, maximizing capacity utilization and maximizing distribution logistics." Paradoxically, the first task on the road toward achieving the internal growth target was thus to strengthen the company's operational efficiency. Lars Olofsson, the former head of Nestlé Europe, explains: "The real objective is to generate growth. To reach this objective, however, costs have to be reduced so that we can have more resources that can be used to strengthen the brands, spur innovation and thus allow us to remain competitive