Brandt Consolidated: Distribution Centered
3 August 2009 The familiar patchwork that makes up the American heartland comes into focus on the approach into Springfield, Illinois, population 117,000. Cropland stretches from one horizon to the other in varied patterns, and the roads that delineate seemingly perfect squares are crowded by as many combines as cars. This is fly-over country — what many Americans from big cities call the parts of the country they fly over to get to where they are going.
With only a handful of flights a day, it would be the quietest airport in the Midwest if it weren’t for the hundreds of similar agricultural towns across the Great Plains. But the area’s rural roots have given rise to agriculture giants steeped in sophistication and global presence. Caterpillar is headquartered near here, and Deere and Co.’s headquarters is a few hours northwest.
And in Springfield, Brandt Consolidated proudly rises from the fertile fields, and its 190 employees are proud to be immersed in their agricultural roots, imbedded in the patchwork that most people only see from 30,000 feet. The landscape fits nicely into the grassroots culture at Brandt.
“I’ve never had the freedom anywhere else I’ve worked to accomplish business goals like I can at Brandt,” says Ramon Georgis, Brandt’s international business director. “Not only can you do things in very little time because there is no corporate bureaucracy, but when you succeed, you have a genuine feeling of accomplishment for the company. I’ll never leave here.”
He’s not alone. Many of Brandt’s employees boast a long tenure and a sincere satisfaction when talking about their jobs. The company started as a fertilizer application business in 1953 by founder Glen Brandt. Soon Glen realized he wasn’t just offering an application service; he was a consultant who started creating fertility programs and specialized products for his clients.
Now the company sits in a new facility in Springfield with US $250 million in sales in more than a dozen countries with offices in Paris, Chile and Guatemala. Flat-panel TVs populate the common areas throughout the building, many of them regularly tuned to soccer matches to appease the international team, which includes Georgis, Vice President Bill Engel, Sales Director Julian Smith, and Technical Director Vatren Jurin. The four lead the company’s Specialty Formulations division, which provides unique crop nutrients, adjuvants, pesticides, fungicides and nematicides. And while Brandt is making inroads in many parts of the US, its major expansion resides in its aggressive quest for distributors in foreign markets. Specialty Formulations comprises about 5% of the company’s revenue, but it is setting its sights on fourfold growth in the near future. Brandt currently has total registrations in 10 countries, and it is selling plant health products in 14. And by 2012, it plans to penetrate 40 markets.
Few are as well suited to take up exponential growth as Georgis. He holds a doctorate in insect pathology and has global experience with ICI, Mitsui, and most recently was global manager for Sumitomo. He says he realized at an early age that he could impact agriculture more as a businessman than a scientist because he could promote plant health and new technologies more effectively with a handshake than a white paper.
Differentiating Factors
But Brandt won’t compromise its commitment to farmers to access new markets. The company is committed to plant health, farmer support, and complete consulting services that benefit farmers, their communities and the environment. With retail divisions blanketing central Illinois, Brandt’s focus has always been on growers, and it is courting international trading partners that share the same philosophy.
“We provide solutions instead of technologies,” Georgis says. “Any success we have revolves around this concept of providing solutions to growers. There is a vacuum for plant health information in many global markets, and we see distributors starting to fill that void.”
Brandt is committed to exporting its corporate culture along with its products portfolio, and like many American companies, it prefers to do business with companies that share its commitment to the success of farmers. Subsequently, the company doesn’t necessarily look for the largest distributor it can find in any given country. Instead, it courts companies that are willing and able to deliver advice in the fields, and that’s a philosophy that permeates the entire international team.
“We are of course going to do business that understands the technical expertise and passion that we have here at Brandt,” says Julian Smith, Ph.D., sales director for the Specialty Formulations division. “And we are more likely to do business with distribution networks that shepherd that philosophy down to the local level.”
The team’s strategic plan to break into 40 countries in the next couple years means Georgis is on a worldwide quest for more distributors, specifically in Spain, Italy, Greece, China, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Argentina. That’s a remarkable goal and an aggressive schedule considering he already visits about one quarter of the world in any given year and spends 75% of his time on the road. And he does it, sometimes for several weeks at a time, without ever checking a bag.
Connecting Distributors
But the high-touch approach to working with distributors helps not only Brandt get to know its partners; it helps other distributors learn from each other. Brandt, through its normal course of doing business, brings traders together to learn from each other and even establish new trading partners of their own.
“We are a company that puts distributors together,” Georgis says. “And they, in turn, exchange their branded products, which is a good arrangement for everyone; we want our partners to make money in all the ways they can. And we want to see our distribution channel know each other so they can share their expertise and business ideas, as well as help refine and expand their technological innovations.”
And Brandt, with its retail outlets in Illinois and distribution networks in North America, knows there is ample opportunity to bring technologies the other way, too. Brandt already has quite a few import partners abroad, mostly for raw materials for its proprietary nutrient formulations. And it is on the hunt for new products that might complement its plant health portfolio.
“We don’t have any intention of making this a one-way street,” Smith says. “If there is an opportunity for something to come back the other way, either products or intellectual properties, then that is something that we want to consider.”
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