Hired to assist a supplier of P&G USA, traveled to the USA, and resolved issues causing some business disorders. This article presents the story.
Client: Gulsan Holding consists of Gülsan Synthetic Weaving Industry & Trade A.S., Gulpa Marketing & Foreign Trade A.S., Kasmir Carpet Industry & Trade A.S., Gul Energy Electric Production A.S., Inova Electric Production Industry & Trade A.S., Paşa H.E.S. Electric Production A.S., Investment of Power Plants - Gülpa A.S., Topcuoğlu Automotive and Construction A.S., Kasmir Construction A.S., Flexible Foam Mattress production A.S., Tubular Bag production A.S., PP CF yarn production A.S., Spunbond nonwoven fabric, A.S., Gulsan Egypt Nonwoven Industries SAE.
Gulsan Holding's headquarters is in Gaziantep, a city in the region of Southeast Turkey, and is among the top 100 companies in Turkey, https://gulsanholding.com/En/Index.
Beneficiary: The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer health and personal care and hygiene products; these products are organized into several segments, including beauty, grooming, health care, fabric & home care, and baby, feminine, & family care. Before selling Pringles (an American brand of stackable potato-based crisps) to Kellogg's, its product portfolio included food, snacks, and beverages. P&G is incorporated in Ohio, United States, https://us.pg.com/
Third-party partners: These are the organizations that I researched, contacted, and met in the USA and negotiated deals to resolve issues between the client and beneficiary organization.
The project is highly complex and new sectoral work for me in spunbond nonwoven fabric, P.E. film, and textile back sheets for the nappy, sanitary napkin, and adult diaper industries. In addition, the client was having issues meeting the requirements of the beneficiary organization in the USA. They tried to get help from a consultant in the USA before with no success. Then, they found me through one of their board members, who knew my experience in handling complex business issues and resolving them with expected results.
Workflow: When they first approached me, I prepared 121 pages of a document on their market and the client's business environment, even before starting. Here is the content of that document:
Rationale & proposition
Part 1: Technical textile industry
Part 2: Standards
Part 3: Diaper history
Part 4: Publications
Part 5: Nonwoven markets
Part 6: Players
Part 7: About Gulsan Holding
Part 8: New Market Entry Strategies
Part 9: Before and after moving to the USA.
Part 10: Goal & objectives in the USA.
Part 11: Life in the USA for Businesses -Salaries, benefits, and cost of living
Part 12: Life in the USA for Business - Corporate tax
They were also seeking an opportunity to extend their manufacturing facilities to the USA. Therefore, the presentation included a glimpse of business life in the USA. Later, I produced a full-fledged report on Business Life in the USA, including studying certain states further and their business environments, taxes, salaries, state-wise cost of living, etc.
I discussed most of this presentation with the Board of Directors of Gulsan Holding. I had two meetings with them, using two versions of this presentation; one is a draft, and the other is a final version. The meetings aimed to get to know each other, conduct partial interviews, and build faith in my services, thus promising to resolve issues with their partner in the USA. After the second meeting, we agreed to work together. Here is the workflow plan (in Turkish, though, due to the board of directors' preference for the use of language), but I will brief you about it below. Later, I had a few iterations of the workflow plan and shared it with stakeholders.
Figure 1: Tentative Project Plan
The project started with one and a half months of internal work at the manufacturing facilities in Gaziantep. The aim was to learn more about the manufacturing processes from the entry of raw material (polypropylene) to Spunbond nonwoven fabric and P.E. Film output at the final stage, then loaded into trucks delivered to Mersin seaport for the cargo ship to transport to New York City seaport. While working in the manufacturing plant, I met with the management team and became further acquainted with the organization's culture. In the end, I presented my work, observations, and findings informally to the Board of Directors in a friendly meeting.
Later, I had an opportunity to talk with the consultant who had worked on the project before. Coincidence that he was visiting Gaziantep – he was Turkish and lived in the USA. So, I felt lucky to meet and talk with him. Thus, I gathered information concerning his experience with the project and the issues he came across. So, it was a highly eye-opening meeting to hear more about his observations and how or what he has done.
After it, the work on a plan for the activities in the USA started. The plan included answering what, when, and how concerning the project activities. I also had financial planning and budgeting. The project had two parts: (1) understanding the issues from P&G's angle and delivering expected resolutions, and (2) working on a draft plan and preliminary work on starting a manufacturing plant in the USA. The second part was exploratory, and upon collecting information, the board of directors would decide how to proceed or whether they would proceed with starting a business in the USA.
Upon completion of work in Gaziantep, I flew to NYC. Thus, our scheduled flights were extended to Cincinnati first. We (one person who accompanied me to introduce me to the P&G organization) had three meetings with P&G representatives. I heard their view of issues firsthand. Upon completion of discussions with the P&G in Cincinnati, my solo work started. I would seek solutions outside of Ohio or in the region between the Ohio and NYC seaport.
The issue was clear: the timing of spunbond nonwoven fabric markets, P.E. Film, and textile backsheet products to P&G Cincinnati facilities. Unfortunately, they were not coming on time, either early or late. Moreover, the issue was causing disorders with manufacturing or stocking the products.
I started researching a suitable depot to keep the stock level of products and inventory level control mechanism according to lead time, consumption rate, demand forecasting, re-ordering levels, and space requirements (not only the size but also other features). After a comprehensive market study, I have identified 15 depots in the region between the Ohio and NYC seaport. It was quite a trip in the area. I planned to use flights plus rented cars, and in some cases, I only used rented cars to drive to the selected depot sites. I took the NYC and Jersey areas as a center for my stay.
To be open with my client, I was meticulous in my work and prepared meeting notes and travel reports. In addition, I collected information to be used later for the financial analysis of the cost of additional logistics and the lease of space at the depot selected. I identified 13 depots in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Illinois conveniently located between the NYC seaport and two P&G manufacturing facilities - Mehoopany, PA, and Jackson, MO. The 95 pages of the trip report included
all meeting notes,
emails, and phone communications,
features and photographs of potential spaces in each depot,
contact people,
information on distances to NYC port and two P&G facilities in km,
and the maps showing my travel trajectory,
and the proposals received as per the RFP,
a table summarizing and comparing proposals.
I also included an RFP sent to depots as an attachment.
In the final round, I prepare a financial analysis supported by the service details of each depot. All documents I wrote during the assignment were:
An RFP was shared with over 15 warehouse management (13 of them were selected to negotiate deals) to give us price proposals
Detailed trip report and case study (95 pages)
Financial analysis of the proposals to help choose one
Finally, an expanded and detailed report on the target market view of potential corporate structure, taxes, and operational issues and risks is prepared. In addition, this report has further studied the markets in selected states.
Upon my return to Gaziantep, all my reports are presented to the Board of Directors. The project's first part was completed with remarkable success without missing pieces or flaws.
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