Interview: Meeting growing MEA demand for local, sustainable colourants
Clariant has expanded its R&D laboratory in South Africa to increase capacity to service all projects coming from its African, Middle East and Turkish customers in Coatings and Special Applications segments. Rossitza Dimitrova, Head of Technical Marketing, Middle East and Africa, at Clariant’s Business Unit Pigments, speaks about the expansion and business potential in the region.
You have expanded in Africa with a new laboratory for pigment preparations. What was the reason for that extension?
Rossitza Dimitrova: The existing South Africa site featured a manufacturing facility, quality control and R&D laboratory. With the further expansion of our state-of-the-art applications laboratory we are now able to service a growth in projects and requests from the market, that we believe is an African showcase for sustainable colour technology.
This expansion aligns with our strategy developed in 2016 to further grow the expertise of this laboratory in Coatings as well as extending it to the Home and Personal care market, supporting not only Sub-Saharan countries, but the full Middle East and Africa region. In our many years of experience we see that it is crucial to offer colour development services, and to be close to our customers. Our technical marketing team in the field connects daily with our customers managing development projects and they are closely connected to our South Africa laboratory. Feedback from the market also shows that for our customers, the most important benefits of the laboratory are the experience, knowledge, skills and quick response times of our team, and that distance is no longer a factor.
In addition, this location allows us to be closely connected with our pigment dispersion plant, to offer a full service developing an innovation from an idea to a final solution.
Did you consider other locations for the laboratory?
Dimitrova: We didn’t ever consider another location for our laboratory as expertise, quality of service and development lead times in the eyes of our customers are most crucial, at the same time as having local contact with technical marketing to understand their technical demands and to manage projects. In our experience logistics have considerably improved in recent years with the lead time for sending a sample from South Africa to customers in Turkey or Saudi Arabia being only a few days.
What potential do you see in Africa, the Middle East and Turkey for pigment manufacturers?
Dimitrova: Our region covers more than 150 countries with the dominating markets in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Egypt. From our perspective at Clariant, we see increasing market potential within Coatings (DECO, Wood and Industrial) next to the Home and Personal Care market. This is the reason we have focused on building regional R&D laboratory expertise in those fields.
As well, a growing middle class is driving the trend towards urbanisation and an increase in demand for consumer goods. As part of this we are seeing a trend towards more sustainable products, including raw materials such as pigments, with most countries adopting more stringent regulations on recycling and, for example, products such as lead-free paint.
Well known for being a market leader in sustainability Clariant is also part of the UN Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management Initiative (SAICM) building momentum to strengthen the safe management of chemicals and waste beyond 2020. Next to our pigment preparation ranges, we offer the lead-free “Hostaperm”, “Novoperm”, “Permanent” and “Hansa” pigment ranges that are increasingly replacing lead pigments in industrial applications, and we see a large potential in the MEA region for these solutions. We also see an increasing need for our customers to find a competitor advantage in this challenging market environment and with our broad portfolio, experience and R&D we can develop tailormade solutions for any demand – where and when needed – coming from our customers driven by the market.
What are the main challenges in the region for pigment manufacturers?
Dimitrova: Markets and customers are changing more rapidly than ever before. The major challenge for us is to support our customers’ future. With our local sales and technical marketing team in the field, we are close to the market and our customers. Through this we can be a strategic partner to our customers, supporting their businesses by predicting the future and being ready with the right solutions.
What are the differences when you compare your business in Africa and the Middle East to Europe?
Dimitrova: Clariant approaches the market in line with customer needs that are different for every region, country and customer. Our approach is first to fully understand a customer’s situation and strategy and then offer support to achieve their goals with our technical know-how and laboratory capabilities.
Having said that, there are general trends that are more specific for each region like, for example, with sustainability topics such as lead-free solutions, where Europe is more advanced than MEA. In this respect, we have the benefit of being a global company where we have a close connection with R&D laboratories in other regions, sharing and learning from successful innovations implemented elsewhere.
How competitive is the battle for talents in South Africa?
Dimitrova: We are in a very niche market. In South Africa it is easy to find good people however they may not have the specific skills needed from the outset. We have found that in-house training and further development is crucial as the quality of our laboratory is driven by our people and their experience.
We put a lot of effort in finding the right talent in the market educating and training them within our company to the highest level to support our customers’ projects. A lot of young graduates have developed in our networks across all departments, people are the key to our success!
