CAIRO: What brings a 206-year-old company best known as the world’s second largest chemical company to a construction trade fair?
“We go where the growth is, Khaled El-Dessouky, DuPont’s manager for Egypt, by way of explanation as the 15th Inter Build conference opened this week. And growth is something this sector is not short on: The Egyptian construction sector boomed at a clip of 15.8 percent in the fiscal year between 2006 and 2007, according to state statistics.
DuPont has been active in Egypt since 2000, and it has largely pursued this strategy. The result is an uncommonly diverse company whose office of 17 includes nine separate businesses, with goods and services as diverse as kitchen design, packaging, “advanced fiber systems and safety consulting.
Explaining to people exactly what the company does can be one of the trickiest parts of his job, El-Dessouky said. Where DuPont once positioned itself as a chemical company, its public materials now employ the term “science company.
“It’s a very difficult term to interpret for people, said El-Dessouky. “What does a ‘science’ company do?
Quite a lot, apparently. In Egypt, DuPont is most active in the foods market, which accounts for more than 35 percent of their total sales. They are present in nearly every step of the process, from seeds to packaging. The company’s other products range from Kevlar gloves to coating for ships’ hulls to marble countertops.
Horizontal integration is a common corporate strategy. The idea is to create economies of scale, business jargon for lowering costs by scaling up operations and drawing on the advantages of moving into other fields.
Virgin has been one of the most overt proponents of this strategy, sometimes with outlandish results: Virgin Group encompasses both comic book makers and space tourism.
El-Dessouky said his office tries to lean on the “One DuPont concept, the idea that workers in each branch should keep their sister branches in mind whenever doing business. When selling Corian countertops, for example, there is a chance – however slim – that they could bump into a buyer for a strain of organic seeds.
El-Dessouky said he is pleased with the direction the Egyptian market is headed. “Industries are becoming much more, let’s say, technologically driven, he said.
He points to DuPont’s safety consulting business as a barometer. “If you went to a company eight years ago or 10 years ago, when we started our businesses in Egypt, and talked to them about safety, nobody would have listened to you, he said. “These days, they ask us to come and give them a presentation and show them what we can do.
Much of this stems from Egypt’s increasing ties to the “international community, he said. “We are more open to the world.
Political and economic stability are always concerns here, he said. And food and oil prices are a threat no matter where they are.
“If you’re talking about limited resources, if you’re talking about material, if you’re talking about oil prices, if you’re talking about food prices, this is an international crisis, El-Dessouky said. “We [Egypt] are part of the world and we have to follow the trend. But definitely the challenges are getting much harder.
Focusing on growing markets is one way to compensate for this, he said. Even if construction does slow in Egypt, for instance, Libya and Algeria could pick up the pace. Like Egypt, these economies have long been closed but have recently begun to open up.
Just before the interview was interrupted by a parade of models bearing music-blaring radios, El-Dessouky compared Inter Build to the variety of other industry-specific shows he has attended throughout the region.Asked his opinion of the show so far, he said it had been “okay.
“Some things need to be improved definitely, in the administration, he said. “But so far I believe it’s been acceptable.
