Focusing on natural-based actives for the cosmetics and personal industry, the company has been reinvesting in growing both this area of the business, together with its geographic expansion.
Headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Chemyunion opened an expanded research and development facility following a $4 million investment at the beginning of last year and opened its first North American sales office in Union, New Jersey in 2016.
Since getting its feet on the ground in the US, the company has been striving to build direct business relationships with its clients there, instead of having to rely on distribution partnerships.
Cosmetics Design caught up with the decision-makers at the company to find out more about the business’s new direction and how the strategy is being implemented.
The reason behind teh US expansion
"The principle reasons for expanding the business into North America are firstly to improve our service to our customers and secondly to get closer to our customers," said
, Chemyunion Inc’s new business vice president.
"By expanding into the US we have vastly improved our customer service. We have a leadership level technical executive running the organization constantly visiting customers and partners. We have our own inventory on the ground in the US, close to our customers. We are formulating personal care products here in the US that are at the cutting edge of technology and trends. We can react quickly to customer needs and changes in those needs."
While the expansion into the US has also brought the company closer to its customers there, it has also helped the company to overcome one of the biggest challenges it has faced in trying to increase the size of its business in the country.
“Our main challenge in the US is that although we have had great distribution partners in the US for many years, many customers still do not know us well,” said Pacheco.
“As a global company headquartered in Brazil, when we talk about our excellent science and efficacy claims many customers are surprised. We are really happy that more US customers are traveling to visit us in Brazil and they are all very surprised by our brand new facility with offices, labs and production.”
Da Silva went to explain that visitors have impressed by the efficacy testing and product development facilities, which in turn is helping to forge more opportunities to work together.
“Having the new facility in New Jersey has enabled us to better support our distribution partners and to go direct to customer when necessary. It has enabled us to get closer to our customers, manage our local stock better and improve o
ur service, including our sample delivery, technical service and sales support. All of these things mean we are able to give better and quicker service to our customers,” da Silva Pacheco said.
A national but localized strategy
The company’s strategy is to cover the whole of the US, but to also take a more localized strategy by targeting specific products for certain regions where there is specific demand.
“We realize the five regions within US are quite unique in terms of weather, habits, and of course customer demands so we try to look into our product pipeline and create marketing campaigns with macro trends but regional context inside them,” da Silva Pacheco said.
“Our ultimate goal in North America is to be the first choice for consumer product formulations who are looking for natural actives with proven efficacy.”
Further international expansion?
On the question of whether or not the company wants to expand its business beyond the Americas, Sérgio Gonçalves, Chemyunion´s international business and marketing director was affirmative.
“We want to expand Chemyunion’s operations to the maximum of our capacity, therefore we are always looking for market opportunities and development strategies to find a distributor that can pursue business development in regions we are absent in,” said Gonçalves.
“Middle East and certain regions of Asia are some of the areas we looking into in search for a business partner. The reason for expanding is based on market expansion activities. The more we are present, the better are our chances of achieving sales growth.