Q&A with BASF's Pest Control Solutions manager Dan Carrothers

Q: What attracted you to the pest control market after being away from the specialty chemicals industry for a number of years?

A: First of all, I liked the fact BASF is an industry leader that behaves in a quietly confident manner. Second, when I looked at BASF’s portfolio – both the current and future products in its pipeline – it became apparent they’re committed to the pest control industry.

Q: With the acquisition of a Whitmire Micro-Gen in 2009, BASF’s product portfolio expanded exponentially, posing both opportunities and challenges for the company. How would you assess the integration of those products and do you see the company’s strategy for positioning those products changing under your leadership?

A: If you really want to be a key partner, I think you have to try to provide PMPs with as many solutions as possible and those solutions have to be best in class. They have to be solutions that enhance the PMPs’ productivity or enhance their profitability, but mostly they’ve got to perform day after day after day. I think what BASF has today in terms of combinations of products for specific pest categories – termites, rodents, ants, bed bugs, flies – is really a gem in the rough.

Q: How does BASF view the public’s growing desire for green technology and what is the company doing to address these changing public attitudes?

A: First of all, let me speak just as an individual consumer. I think anybody who doesn’t take the environment seriously isn’t being honest with themselves. Sustainability is critical. And the only way to sustain an industry is to ensure that the products that are developed to sustain that industry are not harmful to the public or the environment, which is what we do. Second, we need to determine the minimum amount of product we need to use in order to accomplish the job we have in mind. Let’s use only as much as we need to do the job and to do the job properly and no more. And I think one of the things BASF has done very effectively over the years is looking at ways we can accomplish that goal, again, without diminishing the performance of our products. I think where a lot of green discussions have gone south is because the solution simply didn’t solve the problem, and I don’t think that’s what people have in mind. One of the neat initiatives that’s going on inside BASF is to determine the eco-efficiency of the products in our portfolio. We’re trying to determine the environmental footprint of logistically getting our product to distributors and the way the product is applied by the end user, and then compare it to other alternatives. So, I think one of the things that BASF is trying to do, is determine the eco-efficiency of the products that we’re bringing to market and then, quite frankly, challenging ourselves internally to say, “Are there steps along the way, are there things we can do to pull some of that out so that the environmental footprint is smaller and our efficiency as a company is higher?” I think those are worthy initiatives.

Q: How do you see the BASF portfolio changing over time?

A: One of the things that I personally want to do is to establish some broad, strategic goals for the BASF pest control group. Those goals include how do we enhance the PMP’s productivity and profitability? If you want to enhance productivity and profitability you’re going to have to deal with things like labor. Some of the technology and innovation that is coming from us on the termite side of the business will offer solutions to those labor and productivity issues. On the general insect side of the business, callbacks are an issue. Our technology has to be positioned to ensure those productivity and profitability killers are eliminated. It’s aspirational to a certain extent, but in reality many of the products that are already in our portfolio or about to be added to our portfolio are designed to accomplish those things. I think a key plank to all of it, however, is the promise of performance. I don’t think you can ever underestimate how important and critical it is that your products perform day after day after day. As we look out into the future, we’re never going to lose sight of the fact that no matter how we want to adjust the formulation or adjust how it is delivered, we can never trade off performance while we’re looking to address other attributes.

Q: When you talk about your goals and objectives from a marketing perspective, you get very excited. What is it about marketing that you find so compelling?

A: I’m inherently inquisitive and curious, and marketing is very much an inquisitive person’s job because the answers are never black and white. Marketing is one of those things where the more you know, the more you realize that the problem you thought you were solving has changed. The other thing I would say is that the whole concept of deriving insights from data and then determining the implications of those insights, I find very intriguing. I also think there’s a certain discipline to marketing. Marketing is far more disciplined and routine-based than what most people think. There’s a lot that goes into developing a marketing message. I think if you’re a good marketer, you do a much better job of putting the right message to the right person at the right time, and I think the recipient of that is appreciative of the discipline required to accomplish that goal, as opposed to simply broadcasting one message to the entire marketplace, knowing full well that for the vast majority of them it’s just noise.

Source: PCT Online