I have been invited to a final round interview With DuPont Sustainable Solutions Consutling. They have sent me a client case study and I have required to prepare the reponse to a client challenge in a 10 mins presentation: My question: How would approach it: Beloe is the details of the case:
The Challenge Given the downturn in commodity and fuel prices, XYZ is facing a dramatic EBITDA decrease but benchmarks revealed that the 2 main competitors where able to keep their EBITDA almost stable. The CFO did an internal survey. It showed that 30% of the EBITDA decrease is due to weak prices, 10% to a major market loss. The CEO is also concerned by people safety as XYZ had an increase of LTI: 85 accidents and 3 fatalities XYZ faced also some major operational issues in 2015:
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- Mill explosion in Morocco: 3 month plant shut down and 1 fatality
- 4 plants in US running at 30% capacity: impact of local weather conditions on crop production
- Vessel fire: the partner ship company lost for 8MM$ of products, the insurance company has still not compensate and XYZ went to court
- Issues with the Greenfield biofuel plant in NZ: start up delayed +8month and CAPEX +30%, plant also heavily impacted by fuel prices
- Waste in the Animal feed & nutrition: recent regulations impacted valorization routes, waste elimination is extra-costing +25MM$
- Fire in Ethanol plant: 20% of production loss YTD
- Major equipment damage: 2 turbines in Europe and SA were damaged, resulting in 30% capacity loss over 3 months XYZ had a first contact with DSS last year during a Safety Conference. The CEO asked the Head of HSE to contact DSS for potential assistance in order Improve risk management and operational performance.
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XYZ HOLDING fact sheet
• 4 BU:
• Sugar & ethanol
• Animal feed & nutrition
• Bio fuels
• Agri. Commodity trading & processing
• 25 sites: US / Europe / Morocco / South America
/ NZ – big sites 300 employees – small sites 25
• Revenue: 15 billions USD
• EBITDA 2015: 900MM$
• 10 000 employees
My interview is in 6 days. Thanks in advance for your input.
Best Regards.
