Business Development Strategy
We conducted a thorough and successful strategic review of a whey processing company's business development options.
The Brief
A whey processing company asked us to provide a strategic review of its business development options.
Its key requirement was for us to make an informed judgement on whether to expand into added-value whey ingredients, such as isolates and a range of whey fractions.
Our Approach
To provide a clear understanding from a global perspective, we began by focusing on the main issues:
- How supply of these products was configured: volumes, pricing, trends, competitive positioning (volumes, activities, IP, technology etc)
- How the key existing and potential customers saw the commercial proposition, particularly leading players in functional foods, sports & nutritional supplements and infant formulae
- Which ingredients were likely to be the market's "winners" and "losers"
- Whether any of the ingredients offered sustainable business opportunities
Carrying out the bulk of our work in North America, the EU and Oceania, we developed a comprehensive understanding of supply-side issues, through discussions with procurement and product development personnel.
Our Solution
Our assessment reflected a number of business considerations and concluded that it was inadvisable for our client to enter these ingredient categories. This concurred with the view of most of the customer's own management team.
We also highlighted other potential areas for adding value to the existing ingredient portfolio through alternate processing technologies and affiliations with other ingredient technology suppliers.
