VEVEY, SWITZERLAND — Turning a company as large as Nestle SA around will take time. In addition to updating the company’s approach to innovation, management is focused on returning underperforming businesses to growth and reshaping its portfolio.

But even a focus on those issues can’t overcome the current macroeconomic environment. During the company’s Nov. 19 investor day presentation, management committed to the goal of delivering 4% growth in organic sales during a normal operating environment. Anna Manz, chief financial officer, went on to describe why the current environment isn’t normal.

“It's going to take time to fully realize the benefits of our plans as consumer behavior takes 18 to 24 months to change,” she said.

First, Manz said overall food and beverage growth has slowed and is now closer to 2% per year. Second, inventory reductions by retailers are weighing on growth to the tune of about 30 basis points.

Finally — and most significantly, Manz said — Nestle has a growth drag of approximately 100 basis points due to the impact of market share losses.

“So, of that growth drag, a bit less than half is due to the impact of consumer hesitancy toward global brands linked to geopolitical tensions and a little bit more than half is the broader loss of competitiveness,” she said.

Returning to competitiveness will require addressing weaknesses in some of the company’s underperforming businesses. In creamers, for example, the solution is straightforward. The business has been capacity constrained and new capacity is coming online soon.

In European coffee and the company’s US pizza business, the solutions may be more complicated and take longer.

“Since I have taken my role, we have reviewed with the executive board our largest areas of underperformance,” said Laurent Freixe, chief executive officer. “We want to be more systematic in our approach to managing underperformance, diagnosing the issues and swiftly developing and implementing targeted action plans. As it stands today, we expect to fix rather than to sell a majority of these businesses.”

Manz added, “We don’t have a portfolio problem. We’re confident in Nestle’s category growth of 3% to 4% and we can do more to drive acceleration of our categories through consumer-led insights and innovation. And we can certainly do a better job of protecting and increasing our market share as a result of better execution for our consumers and customers.

“The good news here is we have so much opportunity and we’re clear on where to focus and what actions to take. And we’re embedding a new level of rigor; it will take time but it will have an impact.”

One business Nestle’s management team is exploring options for beyond improving performance is waters. At the investor day the company announced plans to transition the business, which includes such brands as Arrowhead, Deer Park, Perrier, Poland Spring, Pure Life and others — into a standalone business led by Muriel Lienau, who currently is head of Nestle Waters Europe.

“This will allow us to have the right focus to drive performance in our leading brands,” Freixe said. “And this includes exploring possible partnerships as we have done it successfully in other areas in the past.”

To support the investments needed to drive growth and turnaround underperforming businesses, Nestle plans to generate cost savings of 2.5 billion Swiss francs ($2.8 billion) by the end of 2027. Manz said the company would provide more details about the cost savings initiatives when Nestle publishes its full-year financial results.

Another area of change for the company will be in resource allocation. Manz said Nestle will focus on where it invests resources, specifically against the biggest growth opportunities.