Why the Need For Data is Rising
2 March 2012 Data is king, especially data for registrations, business planning and strategic development. This Crop Protection Directory is a tool to help you prepare for long-term growth. There is a reason that multinational companies dominate market share in much of the world: They plan business directives with long lead times, typically 20 years in advance.
This process of long-term business management demands analysis of trends in crop production, input adoption, regulatory realities and market access. Multinational companies go through a painstaking process of determining where demand trends are moving in the next two, five, 10 and 20 years as a result of these analyses, and they adjust their portfolios, pipelines and directives accordingly.
Conversely, smaller companies tend to look at two- to five-year intervals. Understandably, they are working diligently to bolster current-year sales and generate enough cash flow to enable them to develop expansion plans of their own. This short-term planning certainly is crucial to the year-to-year success of operations.
However, compared to the longer-term development and planning of multinational companies, which are estimated to control about 75% of global market share, smaller companies will always be playing catch up and perpetually disadvantaged in their strategic growth. But there are ways to gain a competitive edge, including gaining consistent access to regulatory data.
GLP Boom
Throughout the world, regulatory systems are becoming more stringent, and GLP data has become more important and profitable than ever.
Last August, Thailand initiated the re-reregistration of the lion’s share of their crop protection products. Companies with approved products via equivalence were suddenly required to generate their own data and resubmit legacy products for established brands.
Thailand is the most recent harbinger of the dire need for access to data as more emerging agriculture markets adopt international regulatory standards to protect export opportunities associated with key commodities. Those with the data they need are first to re-register products and are instant victors in the battle for market share. I expect similar re-registrations to occur throughout Southeast Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
The burgeoning need for data has created a backlog among contract research organizations around the world. Efficacy analysis, batch sampling, impurity tests and environmental impact studies that took three months to complete a few years ago now require the better part of a year. The industry is meeting the need for more GLP facilities by building more labs, particularly in India. Companies are realizing that access to data generation is as important for global growth as access to the distribution chain.
This emergence of new testing facilities bodes well for competition and the proliferation of crop production technologies. But more analytical capacity is still needed to meet current and potential demand as more countries adopt international standards.
As competition for access to research intensifies, it is even more crucial for companies to start thinking longer term. Short-term plans are essential to the operational direction of business teams, but only the companies that take the long-view approach will be poised to outlast their competitive set. The better the long-term direction, the more likely you will be prepared to react to dynamic markets and business opportunities as they arise.
We are proud to provide this unique, centralized and comprehensive listing of active substances, trade names and suppliers for the crop protection industry. Our Crop Protection Directory is more relevant than ever as global competition for market access and data is reaching a fever pitch, and we are glad to offer a piece of the data needed to make complex decisions for the long term.
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