Emerging Business Landscape

BMW...Dow...Phillips...Sony...Tesco...Unilever...Wal-Mart: historically, no company has ever had to succeed in a business landscape as complex, dynamic and inter-twined as the one emerging today.

Furthermore, the challenge is not just addressing climate change, resource depletion, nanotechnologies, alternative energies, population explosion, genetic engineering or self-assembling materials. It is addressing all of them, because - like a spider web - every strand is linked to every other.

As a consequence, companies must take into account a far wider set of variables that could impact cash flow, supply chains, brand value, shareholder return and other business fundamentals.

Understandably, very serious questions are being asked by executives, Boards of Directors and institutional shareholders, e.g.:

• How do we sustain our long-term financial performance?
• How do we differentiate between truly sustainable initiatives and "green" activities with high-risk, unintended consequences?
• What are the new laws, competitors and technologies that could impact our profitability?
• Why are certain high-profile multi-nationals investing in and/or licensing little-known technologies?

The answers to these and other questions are critical for understanding, navigating and capitalizing on the emerging business landscape.
Ultimately, companies will flourish, languish or perish based on their ability to see the terrain clearly and to implement strategies efficiently.

New Business Drivers

New landscapes mean new drivers.

Many new drivers are well known. They range from the sharp increase in global environmental Directives to the rising tide of CEOs wanting mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

Others are under-publicized and less visible, e.g.:

• Higher-than-ever levels of competition for minerals, water and other diminishing natural resources, as well as commensurate increases in price
• A staggering number of green business competitors and products
• A growing number of environmental taxes and penalties for externalizing waste and pollution
• Threats to operational facilities and supply chains from political instability, civil unrest, food shortages and/or millions of eco-refugees
• Market pressure for increasingly transparent Sustainability Reports

As in so many other areas, it is critical to understand these drivers. It is equally critical to understand how they are dynamically linked and how they can impact a company's bottom line.

Innovation-Driven Opportunities

Both venture capitalists and multi-national corporations are investing billions of dollars in companies with platform technologies that address the new business landscape. Other multi-nationals are licensing these technologies for specific geographies and/or market segments.

On the product level, these technologies provide multiple opportunities for greater market penetration and sales. As examples: companies are differentiating highly commoditized cosmetic and beverage items with eye-catching features. New techniques and bio-films are reducing construction and building maintenance costs, while increasing employee health and productivity. A promising "killer app" is in converting auto waste heat into hybrid-car electricity.

In particular, there are hundreds of biomimicry-based design solutions that reduce cost, risk, liability and regulatory pressure. Solutions are available for every industry from aerospace to wireless.

Dynamic Systems Thinking™ and Natural Solutions

In addition to traditional business processes, OCI is one of the very few firms with expertise in two areas that are critical to market success in today's business landscape.

Dynamic Systems Thinking^TM
Increasingly, business is impacted by uncontrollable factors. To cite one example: hockey-stick cost increases that occur when emerging markets compete for diminishing resources and when new industries (e.g. solar) compete with established industries (e.g. semi-conductors) for raw materials.

How are companies accounting for all these factors? They are implementing Dynamic Systems Thinking^TM to integrate them with traditional business concerns like procurement and supply chain operations. Dynamic Systems Thinking^TM is arguably the only methodology for managing current risks; for identifying future unintended consequences; and for providing a more predictable basis for investment, product development and long-term financial sustainability.

Narrower thinking often results in lower financial performance. Case in point: recent reports have shown a net increase in greenhouse gasses from bio-fuels grown on arable land. With Dynamic Systems Thinking^TM, companies and investors could have foreseen those results and re-directed their efforts.

Nature-Based Solutions
Industry-leading companies from Proctor and Gamble to Hewlett Packard are turning to an under-tapped source of design inspiration to reduce their costs and liability: natural organisms.

These organisms have solved highly complex survival problems. They efficiently "manufacture" at ambient temperature and pressure. And they do so without toxins and with minimal energy.

Based on these solutions, architects, designers, engineers and medical researchers are creating ingenious applications ranging from velcro and tank armor to fans and bone implants. The common thread is that they provide better/faster/lower cost alternatives, open new markets and contribute to profitability.

Nature's 100 Best™

OCI has access to the key scientists, entrepreneurs and technologies that are involved with "Nature's 100 Best"^TM - a compendium of biomimicry-based technologies with very high commercial and industrial applicability. Examples include composite materials; non-toxic flame-retardants and glues; optical brighteners; medical sutures; alternative air-conditioning; self-cleaning textiles; and many others.

Natural Organism	Industrial Product
Fans
Textile and Other Product Cleaners
Tank Armor: Composite Materials
Non-Toxic Flame Retardants