Bioenergy PROFITS Principles: Obtaining Vital Information, and Codexis
What Do You Have To Know?
Bioenergy PROFITS Principle - Obtaining Vital Information
As your company’s CEO or a member of the senior management team, of course you know what your company’s technology is. But…do your employees understand the processes well enough to explain them to anyone who asks about these processes?
Every person in your company needs to be able to articulate your company’s vision, mission and the technology, processes and strategies to achieve them.
Sure, everyone has a sense of what those are. They may know the technology has something to do with biology and making biofuels cheaper or faster than your competitors. Yet they need to know more. Your employees are the ambassadors for your company. They attend school functions, frequent community events and parties, shop at the mall and visit the library. They stand on lines at the grocery store, wait at the train station and pick up dry cleaning. As you think of the frequent and varied networking discussions that your employees can potentially have for marketing your company – if only they knew enough to have a comfort level in having these discussions, your opportunities for ‘getting the word out’ about your company expand tremendously.
Some actions you can take today to help your employees obtain the vital information they need to market your company are:
- Know how the technology works
- Know the technology applications
- Know the competitive advantages
As we continue to use Codexis as an example, the level of detail in these three areas for Codexis will provide an indication of the facts you can and should expect your employees to know to successfully converse about your company. Though not overly technical or extensive, the information is clear and helps any potential customer obtain vital information about your company’s key marketable characteristics.
Know how the technology works
Let’s imagine a common scenario. John, an employee in the logistics and distribution division of your biorefinery company, is at Mario’s pizzeria, waiting for his pepperoni and mushroom pizza. He strikes up a conversation with someone else who is also waiting. Let’s call him Bobby. Bobby is an operations guy at a company that produces hardware for diesel engines. Who knows, though Bobby’s company is not an obvious potential customer, it might be useful for John to take this ten minute opportunity to educate Bobby about your company. However, unless John understands the technology of your company…his company, this conversation will never happen and you might lose a potential customer or ambassador for your company.
Let’s see what an employee of Codexis might know about her company.
Over the last few years increasing attention has been paid to greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on climate change. A growing number of manufacturers meet the demand for sustainable products by implementing low carbon manufacturing processes by reducing energy use. Clean technology can improve manufacturing efficiency, reduce production costs, and enhances brand value. The low carbon economy is helps both the environment and saves costs.
Enzymes exist throughout nature in every living cell. They operate on a very small scale and are inadequate for commercial use. Many classes of natural enzymes, however, are starting points for custom biocatalysts. These custom change agents enable clean, low carbon production of fuels, pharmaceuticals and chemicals. Codexis puts this potential into action on a commercial scale. They develop enzyme products that make new processes possible and make existing processes faster, cleaner and more efficient than conventional methods.
Codexis customizes ‘super’ enzymes capable of selectively and efficiently performing a desired chemical process. This technology, referred to as DNA Shuffling, is part of a directed evolution program to manipulate the DNA blueprint of an enzyme. Starting with a diverse set of genes that encode for variations of the enzyme catalyst, Codexis recombines or shuffles these DNA sequences to create new variants. This takes into account a diverse range of reactions under mild conditions of pH, temperature and pressure. Using sophisticated high-throughput screening methods, novel biocatalysts with desired improvements are selected and these improved variants can then be put through the process again until a highly efficient biocatalyst is created that meets or exceeds targeted performance characteristics.
Now that your employees understand the technology, they can move to the next step by understanding the value of the technology applications for your customers and become very excited about sharing this information when they have the opportunity. Knowledge begets knowledge and the more knowledge employees have, the more likely they are to learn more and to share this information with potential customers.
Know the technology applications
Let’s return to Mario’s pizzeria. John and Bobby now discovered that they not only both have eight year old sons on the same T-ball team, but they also both have a strong commitment to working in an industry that wants to supports alternatives to petroleum fuel. Will they take it a step further and discuss the unique features of their companies? They will – only if they have the ability to articulate the essence of their company’s mission and technology.
Now let’s turn to Peter, who works as a financial analyst for Codexis. Below is the information he knows about his company. Consider if your employees can be counted on to articulate your company’s applications to its technology.
Although we are not focusing here on the pharmaceutical industry, Codexis has successfully applied its processes to manufacturing something called key chiral building blocks which are used in the production of the world’s larges selling drug for treatment of high cholesterol. This new process has also reduced waste, solvent usage, energy consumption and the need for specialized manufacturing equipment. As a leader in the pharmaceutical industry, by extension, Codexis will have a credible reputation in the biofuels industry.
New, sustainable, high-performance liquid transportation fuels are essential to meeting the challenges of global warming as demand is expected to reach up to a quarter-trillion dollars in the next decade. Biofuels are used in a tiny fraction of currently-operating cars, trucks, trains, ships and planes. Clean fuels that effectively serve existing vehicle infrastructure will find a strong and receptive market. Codexis, partnered with Shell, is developing advanced biofuels from renewable, non-food sources to meet this demand.
Conversion of biomass to transportation fuel is an area of active research as nations and energy companies seek ways to reduce dependence on oil by developing advanced biofuels from renewable, sustainable sources. For this to be viable, however, it is essential to develop non-food biomass conversion methods and high performance biofuels that can compete with petroleum-based fuels on both cost and quality.
Carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants and other point sources are a leading source of air pollution and greenhouse gases. Government-mandated caps on these emissions in Europe have created a substantial market for mitigating technologies since implementation in 2005. Large market opportunities are expected in the United States and other parts of the world as regulations are adopted. Codexis is developing technology to enable carbon capture for use by power plants and other significant point source emitters. This technology would reduce emissions and permit safe storage of carbon waste at a fraction of the cost of currently available alternatives.
Codexis technology can be applied to multiple emerging environmental markets that are widely expected to gain increasing importance in coming years. By some estimates, the market for improved water treatment worldwide could approach half a billion dollars in this decade alone. The need for clean water is particularly acute in developing nations, where lack of access to clean water leads to disease and economic instability. The World Health Organization estimates returns up to around $30 for every $1 invested in safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
Chemical manufacturing represents another major growth opportunity for clean technology. Current chemical manufacturing is predominantly petroleum based, including many common products such as clothing, construction materials and household cleaners. Availability of alternative chemical processes derived from renewable sources could not only dramatically reduce this industry’s environmental impact, but would also create substantial market opportunities, while decreasing our dependence on foreign oil.
Do these applications translate into Codexis’ competitive advantage? Do the applications you provide represent competitive advantages for your company? Can your employees articulate this information to potential customers? Are these applications unique within your industry? Can employees link this information to specific ways that your company is unique from your competitors?
Know the competitive advantages
Your company must be able to differentiate from competitors. At best, it must be better and be able to prove this.
Codexis technology creates value for customers by improving chemical development productivity while reducing the cost and environmental impact.
Codexis technology addresses limitations of many current approaches which allow a company to quickly develop biocatalysts with improved performance characteristics that are suitable for commercial scale.
The biocatalysts are in commercial use and have a proven track record. As a result, Codexis, in collaboration with shell is producing biofuels from cellulosic biomass sources and are involved in carbon management, water treatment and chemicals.
Its partnerships with global industry leaders in pharmaceutical companies such as Merck and Pfizer provide credibility for future endeavors.
Also, Codexis leverages customers’ technical and manufacturing expertise, distribution infrastructure and ability to fund commercial scale production facilities. This makes the business capital efficient for both Codexis and its partners and allows Codexis to expand into new markets without financing or operating large industrial facilities.
In addition, the Codexis revenue stream is diversified across various industries. Revenues are derived from the innovator pharmaceuticals and biofuels arenas.
In Summary:
The bottom line is: Can you rely on John, as he waits for his pepperoni pizza at Mario’s pizzeria, to clearly articulate your biorefinery company’s strategy, in an articulate, yet in matter of fact and conversational way to Bobby, who supervises and operates complex equipment for a manufacturing company that produces hardware for diesel engines – as they chat, waiting for their respective dinner pizzas?
Today’s topic, Obtaining Vital Information, is one of the seven Bioenergy PROFITS Principles. This series highlights proven principles to running your business more effectively (from the newly released book, run Your Business Like a Fortune 100: 7 Principles for Boosting PROFITS, by Rosalie Lober, Ph.D.) and illustrates key points of the successful company, Codexis develops biocatalysts for the pharmaceutical and biodiesel industries. Its technology produces biofuel from plant material and is also working with other markets to use its technology to manage CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants and treat wastewater.
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