Strategic Technology Resources

Fred von Ahrens:

We are working very hard to shift from a commodity chemical, product focus to a market-focused business unit. Although we have been committed to growth for several years we have traditional roots in managing commodities. We are very good at negotiating and addressing product and competitive situations and at protecting and, at times, growing share. We are used to carving out market segments that we can be a leader in and then finding ways to leverage the resulting position.

We're not as comfortable in taking risk and dealing with new market areas, new applications and products. In this new approach people will experience failures - 3 out of 5 new opportunities may fail. We had to ask ourselves, “how do you resource and how do you prioritize in this new environment?” “How do you get people comfortable with taking risks, or with changing our culture from one of being judgmental about the price, volume and share aspect of a deal to a culture that asks how effective market research has been, and how well market plans have been developed and how well people have executed against those market plans?

We realized our challenge is to develop end-customer relationships and true market channels not just to be concerned about our immediate customers in the supply chain. In our case it means finding ways of changing our image. We are working to become a true solution provider, going downstream and helping our direct customers grow their businesses. This sounds crisp and sexy perhaps, but we are finding that it is not easy. We have been at it for a few years now and our image has changed very little. Shifting our image requires more than just doing research, making a few market contacts or being at key industrial shows and conferences. We have to put forth a conscious and continuing effort repositioning our brand, developing our logos and getting early commercial wins.

We found that we had to change our organizational structure and in some cases individuals. Risk adverse individuals struggle in growth efforts.

Our organization is reasonably autonomous; however we needed to get our senior management to declare that growth in our business is okay. To change the culture we had to go back to the fabric and declare growth safe.

Scott comments in an accompanying video on the approach we have taken in one of our growth initiatives, microbial control in food production and processing operations.