From the time you wake up and eat your breakfast of cereal grown from DuPont seed and doused in milk produced from DuPont soy protein, to when you drive home in a car sprayed with a DuPont automotive coating, DuPont products have become an essential part of daily life.
That is because the science & technology company produces everything from plastic bottles, to seeds, to protective clothing.
Despite this, the company's transglobal influence is often largely unnoticed. Most of its best innovations are recognised under individual brand-names such as Teflon resins, Pioneer seeds, SentryGlas Plus laminated glass, Kevlar high-strength material, Corian solid surfaces, Tyvek protective material and Solae soy protein.
Now the company is working to raise its profile. This is part of a concerted strategy that began in 2000 and was fully implemented in 2004 to better position itself for long-term, sustainable growth.
The SA leg of the business, whose revenue pales in comparison to the earnings of Asian economies, finds itself playing a small but significant role in this big picture. It is now responsible for driving sales through the sub-Saharan region, one of DuPont's identified areas of strategic growth.
Today's company, with its diverse businesses, is quite different from the one that was formed in 1802 with explosives as its core focus. Growing from its explosives base it diversified in the 20th century, turning its attention to chemicals, materials and energy, among other industries.
In the late-1990s DuPont reaffirmed its commitment to the life sciences as a core business area. The company identified the bioindustrial, pharmaceutical and feed and food industries as potential areas for its increasing integration of chemistry and biotechnology.
In 2002 DuPont organised its businesses into five market- and technology-based growth platforms: agriculture & nutrition; coatings & colour technologies; electronic & communication technologies; performance materials; and safety & protection.
In the process, it disposed of noncore businesses such as the lycra and nylon units and its oil company, Conoco.
The sharper focus has delivered higher sales and opened doors in new markets. The company is represented in 70 countries and turned over US$27bn last year. Though this is in line with 2003 earnings, it reflects growth of close to $4bn that compensated for the company's sale of its textile business.
"We see this performance as confirmation of the strength of our five growth platforms and the successful execution of our key strategies," says regional director for Africa Alberto Gaspar. He is referring to strategies that DuPont calls "going where the growth is"; "power of one DuPont" and "putting science to work".
"Going where the growth is makes sense," he says. "We will maintain our businesses in mature markets and increase our focus on growing, emerging markets." Growth in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong grew collectively by 32% last year; Eastern Europe grew by 35%.
"Growth in SA has been about 20% for the past two years. Now we are implementing a strategy to drive regional revenues in the same direction as SA's growth."
The power of one DuPont is the company's strategy to use its disparate product sets and business units to provide an industry or customer with a more integrated service. "For instance, we have hundreds of products from laminated glass, to synthetic surfaces, to refrigeration units that are used in the construction industry," says Gaspar. "They are housed in different business units, so it's unlikely that a customer would have any concept of the scale of our offering."
So he plans to focus marketing and education efforts on commercial and industrial architects - the decision-makers who specify which products are used.
Putting science to work reflects DuPont's recognition that science helps form the capabilities, offerings and competitive advantages of all of the company's businesses. "Rather than searching for a single, blockbuster innovation, we will drive growth by generating dozens of new products with annual revenues of $20m-200m," Gaspar says.
When the company began to focus on revitalising its research & development (R&D) in early 2000, 40% of its technology resources and assets were dedicated to growth. The rest supported existing products and operations. Now 65% of the company's research is focused on growth.
These accelerated research processes should ensure DuPont meets its target of deriving 35% of sales from products less than five years old by 2007. In a company that owns more than 20 000 worldwide patents and more than 14 000 global patent applications this should be achievable. Last year DuPont was granted almost 500 US patents and 1 740 international patents. It also owns 1 800 unique trademarks for its products and services and has applied for a further 17 900.
"Executing the new strategies changes our approach to the market," says Gaspar. "It means that we are continually introducing - into fast growing markets - new products that are determined by what customers want and concrete market opportunities," he says.
Gaspar will focus his new sales force on developing the market for agricultural products, personal protection products and engineering, polymers and construction.
Implementing these strategies in the African business, says Gaspar, should enable the company to double the size of its business within five years.
