Interview: Tide Group, integrating high quality into global sales system

"A good QA system is a cornerstone and safeguard for us to have successfully opened up the world market", said Mr. Yang Zhengyu, the Chairman of Tide Group in a recent interview to Agropages correspondent.

Tide Group is China’s only pesticide manufacturer registered with CropLife America and CPDA in US. Over the last 20-year growth, Tide Group has grown from a trading company into an R&D, production and marketing integrated agro group. The products of Tide Group have been sold to North America and South America, with zero complaint for consecutive 7 years in the US market; its independent brand names such as Tide Acephate, Timectin™, Tide Clethodim, Paclo and Krop-Max™ etc. have become widely known in the US market.

Agropages: How does Tide Group make its global deployment?

Mr. Yang: Being initially an international trade company, Tide Group established its overseas market 20 years ago, which targeted at high-end market like US, Europe and South America. These markets however have the features of strict administration, high registration requirement, close collaboration between production and marketing. Most of these markets are controlled by multinational companies. Entry to these markets requires larger investment, coverage of higher risk and expectation of longer period of return.

The present overseas markets of Tide Group are mainly distributed in North America and South America, with a couple of branches being established in US and Brazil in support of localized operations of Tide Group in these countries. At present Tide Group has obtained 55 pesticides EPA registration certificates in US and 11 registration certificates in Brazil.

Business in the US of Tide covers sales of pesticide technical and formulation, utilizing the advantages of EPA registration and localized operations which so far operate quite well toward a steady growth. In the meantime the J/V with a US leading pesticide distributor has helped to speed up the market exploration process.

Tide do Brazil Ltda is anticipating a turnover of US$50 million in 2013, by virtue of the influence of EPA registration, the market advantage of North America and a localized marketing team.

Coming up next Tide Group will apply its operating experience to North America and Brazil to open up European market by sharing the EPA registration information, hoping to obtain registrations of 15-20 technical products and 50-60 formulation products in EU in 5 years’ time to become China’s first numbers of pesticide manufacturer to land in such a high-end market and start to be profitable from 2017.

Agropages: How does Tide Group ensure the implementation of the deployment?

Mr. Yang: A good QA system is a cornerstone and safeguard for us to have successfully opened up the world market. All production locations of Tide Group in China have set up strict QA system with SOP in place covering all steps from incoming material, finished product and packaging up to delivery; this would ensure the high quality of pesticides which are sold worldwide.

Tide Group is committed to supply of high-efficient and safe pesticide formulation products to end-users, as backed up by its strong R&D capability. Tide Group has currently a number of formulation-targeted R&D labs both in China and overseas, working at novel pesticide development. Meanwhile green field test is being carried out to eliminate the adverse effect to the environment which may be caused by pesticide adjuvants. These measures well comply with environmental regulation and will safeguard the sustainability of the marketing strategy of Tide Group.

An experienced and professional team is the key to the international marketing exploration. Many professionals from transnational companies have joined Tide Group, who bring in rich marketing experience, knowledge of legal framework of different markets, understanding of demand of different customers, as well as how to establish brand image and marketing channel, how to better serve customers, how to more effectively facilitate the implementation of strategies of Tide Group.

Based on the concept of “to be customer-oriented; to provide customer with quality, safe and environment-friendly pesticide”, Tide Group is prepared to put this idea into action and further promote the Made-in-China pesticide to the world market.

Agropages: “To be customer-oriented” is a word addressed by almost all companies, can you share with us some successful experiences of Tide Group in this regard?

Mr. Yang: To put the saying “to be customer-oriented” into practice relies on an in-depth insight into the market as well as on an effective technical support; also the R&D strength of Tide Group allows us to figure out solutions from customer perspective.

Let me use our Acephate sold in US market as an example. The conventional formulation of this product is soluble powder, packed in water soluble bag. Due to the water absorption nature of the product, the water-soluble bag could become stiff and crisp as a result of loss of water. At the time of spraying by an airplane after being dissolved, the spray head got plugged. After we identified the problem, we changed the conventional formulation into granular formulation without the use of water-soluble bag and this avoids plugging. It is now more convenient for farmers’ use. Additionally we managed to change the formula of a fungicide to eliminate the odor that exists with conventional product.

One more example, some manufacturers may label Abamectin with cautions such as “the product contains organic chemical composition, use of same in California may cause physical deficiency or harm to birth”. However what we did was to spend an investment of some $1,000,000 and via 160 experiments, we improved the formula successfully. Now we don’t need to label such a caution on our products, and farmers would naturally choose more healthy products.

Agropages: What will be the next objective of Tide Group?

Mr. Yang: The near-term goal of Tide Group is to increase overseas registrations in recent years, to enhance the brand image of products, to be present in more terminal market with availability of more terminal products thus to expand our influence in the market; moreover, we will focus on development of more novel products and new formulations.

The long-term goal or our corporate vision will include 2 aspects: one is to obtain more overseas registrations of novel pesticides with Chinese intellectual property; the other one is to acquire overseas distributors so as to really enter terminal market. China’s future agrochemical manufacturers should cover sectors of seed, fertilizer, pesticide and apparatus etc.; Tide Group is dedicated to becoming an integrated agrochemical enterprise which provides growers with full set crop protection solutions.