Bart Becht knows a thing or two about cleaning up, not merely because he claims to do all the cleaning at home. His company – Reckitt Benckiser – is one of the world’s most successful manufacturers of cleaning products.

Reckitt may not be a name that sets the pulse racing in the same way that, say, Tesco might, or BP, nor are its products as appealing as some – Vanish stain remover, anyone, Harpic toilet cleaner or the wonderfully named Cillit Bang surface spray? – but they sell. Thus for seven years the company has enjoyed a 7 per cent increase in net sales every year, against an industry average of only 3-5 per cent.

In 2006, those sales hit £4.9 billion, up 44 per cent from £3.4 billion in 2002. Net profits have trebled since 1999, from £200 million to £768 million in 2006. And for such muscular corporate performance, Mr Becht is widely admired and richly rewarded. He is one of Britain’s highest-paid executives, receiving £22 million last year.

How has he done it? A big part of building Reckitt into one of Britain’s biggest companies, with a market capitalisation of £20 billion, has been a relentless focus on growth markets. “We focus disproportionately on categories where we have strong leadership positions and where we can have good margins,” he said, speaking from the group’s headquarters in Slough.

Automatic dishwasher powder, for example, where Reckitt is the global market leader with its Finish and Electrasol brands. “Dishwasher penetration is growing every year and will continue to do so for many years, but handwash powder just doesn’t have the same levels of growth, so we are not in it.

“We are not in shoe polish any longer, either, for the same reason – use of shoe polish is falling every year because kids don’t wear polishable shoes and women no longer polish their shoes – they throw them away.”

Another key plank of Reckitt’s strategy is product innovation, according to its chief executive: “Out of £5 billion in total turnover, £2 billion comes from products that have been launched in the past three years.”

Reckitt, he argues, concentrates on constantly introducing new, improved variations on existing brands and then supporting them with huge marketing campaigns to drive the message home. “We spend 12.5 per cent of our net revenues on media compared with 6-10 per cent by competitors. We very heavily support our products.”

It is an approach that has won Reckitt plenty of friends in the advertising industry. The company is one of the top ten advertisers in the UK, spending £65.2 million last year. It offers a similar level of support to product launches worldwide (it employs 22,000 people in 60 countries).

Reckitt is also highly focused. While competitors such as Unilever have hundreds of brands – some global, some local – spread across dozens of markets, Reckitt concentrates its efforts on just 18 “power brands”. Some – such as Vanish – already enjoy global reach; others, Mr Becht believes, have the potential to achieve similar recognition.

The fundamental principle, though, is to build genuinely global brands – and this may explain Mr Becht’s views on air travel. “When you start recognising the air hostesses, you know you’re in trouble,” the Rotterdam native laughed, speaking in a Dutch-American twang picked up while studying for an MBA in Chicago and stints working for Procter & Gamble in the United States and later as general manager of Benckiser’s Canadian operation.

He travels up to 300,000 miles a year helping to drive the group’s growth, an exhausting schedule that evidently works. Vanish, for example, was launched in Britain in 1983 as a stain-removing soap. Now it sells in 57 countries.

Another key ingredient to Reckitt’s success, and to Mr Becht’s approach to delivering it, is a fanatical attention to detail. A key focus within the business is a constant emphasis on cost control. “You are never done – which is a good thing,” he said.

The company has two permanent teams dedicated to cost-cutting. One, nicknamed “Squeeze”, is looking constantly at the detailed design of products and finding ways to trim the amount of materials used to manufacture them. Its recommendations could be down to minutiae such as changing the design of bottles in order to cut out a few grams of plastic per item – a change that across millions of products has a surprisingly big impact on spending.

Another team, “Extrim”, is focused on the efficiency of the rest of the operation, including everything from cheaper sourcing to the speed and layout of factories. “It may also include closing plants,” Mr Becht added.

His description makes the Reckitt/ Becht approach to making consumer goods sound a little like a military operation. Not quite, according to the man himself. “It’s a little bit less disciplined,” he said, “and also we believe in constructive conflict.”

While Reckitt was founded as long ago as 1814, the present group was created in 1999 after the merger of Britain’s Reckitt & Colman with Benckiser, of the Netherlands. Old-fashioned brands that had helped to build the business, such as Colmans mustard, have been cast off, and Mr Becht, a Benckiser man before 1999, sounds genuinely passionate when he speaks of the modern company’s internal culture.

“We have a very strong multi-national team and what we have accomplished is a team effort,” he insisted, adding that other big companies can fail because, while global in nature, there is usually one dominant country or culture.

His determination to attract talented staff is also clear, and it is interesting that he gives this as one of the reasons for one of Reckitt’s latest initatives: a drive to cut the group’s carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2020.

“It’s not just the right thing to do for society, but as a business, too,” he said. “More and more consumers genuinely want to do something about climate change and are choosing products that allow them to do that . . . and also if we want to attract top talent, then it is something we need to do.”

Part of this initiative will be greater use of video-conferencing, something that Mr Becht said he was particularly pleased about, given his globe-trotting schedule.

Nevertheless, Reckitt’s executives may still have a few reasons to stay on the road. While Mr Becht said that the emphasis was to grow the business organically, he accepted that acquisitions may also have a role to play.

What he described as “infill acquisitions in Asia” could be on the cards, while another big strategic focus is consumer healthcare, where Reckitt has owned brands such as Dettol, Nurofen, Lemsip, Clearasil and Strepsils since buying Boots Healthcare for £1.9 billion in 2005.

Mr Becht said that healthcare was interesting because the sector was growing fast and products command strong brand loyalty.

A bigger target also remains a possibility, he said, although he declined to be drawn any further. “If something comes along, then we will take a look at it,” was as far as he would go – which suggests that for those shrewd industry observers who have kept a close eye on Reckitt’s impressive progress in recent years, there could be plenty more to command their interest in years to come.

C.V.

Age: 51, born in Rotterdam and raised in Alkmaar, the Netherlands

Nationality: Dutch

Education: studied economics at the University of Groningen, business in Delft and obtained his MBA at the University of Chicago

Career: Joined Benckiser in 1988 and served as general manager in Canada, Britain, France and Italy. Previously worked for Procter & Gamble in the United States and in Germany . Appointed chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser after the merger of Reckitt & Colman and Benckiser in 1999. Was chief executive of Benckiser Detergents, subsequently Benckiser NV since 1995, and chairman of Benckiser’s management board from May 1999

Family: married, three children

Hobbies: tennis, golf, football

Cutting the mustard

1814 Jeremiah Colman begins milling flour and mustard in Norwich

1823 Founding of Benckiser by Johann A. Benckiser in the Netherlands

1930s Reckitt buys Harpic Lavatory Cleaners and launches Dettol

1956 Benckiser diversifies into consumer goods and launches Calgon water softener

1985 Reckitt & Colman buys Airwick, the air freshener business

1990 Reckitt & Colman acquires Boyle-Midway, the American household products group with brands Woolite, Easy-Off, Sani-Flush, Wizard and Old English

1995 Reckitt & Colman sells the Colman’s food business

1999 Reckitt & Colman and Benckiser merge to become Reckitt Benckiser, the world’s biggest household cleaning group, with Bart Becht as chief executive.

2006 Reckitt Benckiser completes acquisition of Boots Healthcare International for £1.9 billion, gaining a new platform for growth in the over-the-counter healthcare market