Dear Colleagues,
I am both honored and delighted to assume the position of Chief Executive Officer at Makhteshim Agan. Before I begin to ponder the road that lies ahead, I would like to thank our Chairman of the Board, Avraham Bigger for the hard work he has invested over the past three years. His efforts have helped to lay truly solid foundations for the company, which should serve us well moving forward. The warm welcome he has extended me in enabling a smooth transition is much appreciated.
Makhteshim Agan is an outstanding company operating in a highly dynamic playing field. Assessing our past performance and what is currently in place across our extensive global operations, I believe that we have all the right building blocks aligned to ensure continued growth and expansion while improving upon our competitive positioning. Looking ahead, we need to further emphasize and synergize between the various core competencies that have comprised the backbone of the company and account for its strong market position.
These include, first and foremost, our employees consisting of immensely talented individuals who have demonstrated innovation, commitment and great insight in driving our global business agenda; an extensive platform that includes the industry’s most diverse offering of off-patent crop protection solutions, a wide and global footprint, a broad portfolio of active ingredients, and significant product development, formulation and registration capabilities in key geographies; and finally, a deep tradition and knowledge base in agriculture, chemistry and technology.
Over the past few months, I have identified some challenges which we will need to address together in order to foster our continued growth. Significant and important progress has already been made in laying the groundwork. It is now up to us to advance the cause, moving steadily forward. The tasks we face will test our ability to operate more coherently as a global organization; many of these challenges have already become more pronounced during 2009.
To that end, we will need to remain focused on improving our operating capabilities on a global level while scrutinizing our business portfolio on an ongoing basis. Under my leadership, Makhteshim Agan will focus on four main development areas as a springboard for delivering future sustainable growth: How we compete, in terms of strengthening our market orientation, promoting business innovation in key geographies, and fortifying our chemical backbone; Where we compete on a geographic level and with which products; Improving the output of our core operating functions; and crystallizing the Makhteshim Agan way of operating – "MAI Way", as part of facilitating leadership through all levels of the organization.
We recently launched a number of group-wide initiatives, the effects of which will gradually be felt throughout our organization. I am confident in our ability to excel and meet the challenging goals that we set for ourselves. While we strive to reach our long-term mission, I remain committed to maintaining a "both feet on the ground" approach to ensure that our business goals are met and examined both on a short term as well as a long term view.
Erez Vigodman
CEO