Robert's Rants
Robert's Rants
A personal blog on the Canadian pesticide industry and other pet peeves and interests

While I’m picking on big companies…

Might as well finish my lament over small companies getting inhaled by major corporations and the change in their “philosophy” and effect (or is it affect?) on what we have available in the Canadian market. 

Not surprisingly, market needs and customers generally suffer when this happens, as what makes smaller companies successful is their ability to make a decision, react, and meet their customers needs faster than the “sleeping giant”.  It doesn’t take a committee of lawyers, engineers, production planners, forecasters, marketers, finance, purchasing and regulatory (not to mention research) to make a decision when you only have 4 people in the whole company to start with!

Case in point, after a major supplier consumed a well oiled but small marketing company, an order sat on their loading dock waiting to get shipped for 6 weeks as they had not put the product into SAP yet…geesh!  We only missed the market, which in Canada lasts about 2 months!

So are we are once again, another giant gobbles up a little guy and now we wait….and wait…and wait.   Maybe they should have figured out if they could make the product before they made the investment???  So if you are wondering where your boric acid based stuff is (I won’t name names), now you know!

Next up….more jousting at windmills!

Another One bites the Dust: Permadust that is

Just received word BASF will cancel Permadust production for Canada come end of 2012.  Hate to see another product fall by the wayside, but the market didn’t support it as much as required to keep it on the BASF range.

Since the aquisiton of Whitmire we have lost Avert roach bait stations and gel, plus Avert piston cans.

Problem is simple really.  The entire Canadian pest control market doesn’t even add up 1% of the products sold to the state of California, so when a giant company looks at what products to support, and where to invest, we don’t make the hurdle rate or the return on investment required.

That’s why I hate to see smaller companies bought up.  A small niche product may not mean diddly to a huge bazillion dollar chemical giant, where as it could be a nice add on for a smaller corporation. 

But let’s hope some of their new chemistry will come to the market sooner than later.

Really too bad, but it’s all about the money folks.