Case Analysis
Group Team Leader : Mrs Ei Phyusin Htay
Situation Analysis
Phase Separation Solutions Inc (PS2), founded in 2004 in Canada, is a young environmental management & consulting company who licensed a patent of unique TPS technology for PCB contaminated soil treatment and oil sludge recovery, having a vision of fully integrated International environmental service company. The firm's competencies, weaknesses, external opportunities and external threats are identified in below summary table.
Strength
High entry barrier due to strict licensing, high start up cost, requirement of special scientific expertise to operate
TPS technology is highly mobile, onsite remedial technology
Exclusive right to use TPS technology in China, patent in Canada & USA till 2019
Highly liquid balance sheet, no long-term loan Weaknesses
Scarce resources and expertise personnel (a limitation to high diversification)
Opportunities
China's environmental agency's expression of interest to go joint-venture
Increasing environmental expenditure by China government ($162.5 billion)
$725 million PCB & POP treatment market in China and more POP waste are expected from growth
Likely regulatory prohibition to export POP contaminated soil from one province to another in China (favors mobile technology such as TPS)
Threat
Shrinking Home market size (Known PCB contaminated soil in Canada are only available for 2 years production of PS2 and its only one competitor, BEV)
Patent expiring in 2019 and competitors will be easy to adopt the competitive TPS technology freely in home market, Canada
Key Issue
Having a shrinking PCB market in Canada is an incentive for strategic diversification where PS2's board is in the dilemma of deciding whether to stay put in home market and diversify product scope (or) going China with NIES for PCB/POP market (or) going China with Nahai for Oil sludge market (or) going China with both are the key issues to be addressed.