Olympic Games

At the outset of 2008, high feedstock prices forced Proviron to renegotiate existing contracts with customers. The arguments found a willing ear, which enabled the company to largely preserve its margins. Meanwhile, export from China weakened considerably owing to the suspension of many industrial activities by the Chinese government in order to reduce pollution during the Olympic Games. In the third quarter the euro weakened vs. the US dollar which was also to our advantage. All this allowed us to keep up sales until November, enabling the business unit Product to look back on a good year. Indeed, in terms of profit contribution, October 2008 was our best month in years, which was actually true for all business units. But in December, the economic polar winter began.

At the customer

What more did Proviron achieve in 2008? To begin with, the company succeeded in selling more on a margin basis as opposed to a volume basis. Proviron started developing new products more and more at the customer, a result of the strategy to focus on functional chemicals. We used to just send some samples when customers inquired about a specific product. In 2008, we started checking things out on the spot, thinking along and maybe coming up with a totally different solution.

A real name

The strategic exercise in 2008 taught us that Proviron is strong in the field of producing and marketing quality esters, water surfactants and niche plasticizers. In brief, we refer to five core markets: polymer additives (primarily plasticizers), water-emulsifiers, feed additives, bio energy and functional monomers. In 2008, we also redefined our corporate identity approach, the elaboration of which we will start in 2009. After all, our name and logo are important marketing instruments. That is why we use the name Proviron or part of it as much as possible when naming our products. In other words, products will be given a real name instead of an abbreviation or code.