Nuplex is a leading global manufacturer of resins used in paints, coatings and structural materials. The company established in 1952 is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand. The Company has integrated sales, manufacturing and R&D network located across New Zealand, Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. Nuplex supplies resins used in a wide variety of paint and coating applications, including decorative and trim paint, automotive coatings, vehicle refinish products, wood flooring and furniture coatings, metal coatings, consumer electronics and whitegoods coatings, marine and protective coatings, and coatings for infrastructure and transport. The products are sold in 80 countries around the world. Nuplex products play a pivotal role in our lives as key ingredients of those products that bind, enhance and protect houses, cars, boats, swimming pools, furniture, fabrics…...the list continues, down to newspapers and tissues. I. MISSION “Creating the chemistry behind everyday products everywhere” The mission of Nuplex is to innovate and supply competitive coating resin solutions of world class quality, driven by a culture toward operational excellence resulting in robust earnings and benefits to the stakeholders. II. VISION “To be recognized as the leading Coating Resins Company” The vision of the company is to succeed in the highly competitive businesses by a strong strategic focus on sustainable growth in selected markets and product lines and by a relentless pursuit of excellence in all operations that will make Nuplex the leading Coating Resins Company. The culture toward operational excellence is one that embraces a sense of urgency, speed, collaboration, integrity and measurable outcomes that will make Nuplex realize the vision. III. POLICIES Nuplex follows policies to add strength to its global operations by increasing presence and business volumes in different regions. The policies consider key operations providing strategic orientation towards:  Expanding core processes and reducing non-core activities  Expanding through strategic acquisitions and creating collaboration with right partners  Focusing on functional areas to generate efficiency with specific programs designed to deliver results,  Selecting regional sites for operations that has global potential and developing them into profit centers so as to continue as the leader in coating resin market.  Innovation to excel in performance. IV. OBJECTIVES *The seven focus areas for objective achievement in the period from 2010 to 2015 were drafted by Nuplex to cover: 1. Financial Objectives: Nuplex envisages an annual growth in sales at 3% and Net Profit after Tax to grow at 5%. 2. Innovation and Product development objectives: The innovation objective is to find innovative solutions to increase ‘open time’ of coatings and to reduce the sag. The product development objective is to have a new product introduced every three years during the plan period. 3. Safety objectives: The safety objective is to achieve Zero Harm, which means to reduce:  Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate(LTIFR) to 1.0 hours per million working hours  Total Reportable injury rate(TRIR) to 3.0 hours per million working hours  Greenhouse gas emission rate (GGER) to 2.40 CO2 equivalents per ton of production 4. Capacity Expansion objectives:  Asia expansion: The following three projects to increase capacity by 50% a) Capacity enhancement at Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam Site by 2012 b) Commissioning of new site at Changshu, China Site by 2013 c) New Reactor at Surabaya, Indonesia by 2014  Acquisition of site in Australia by 2011 to consolidate their position in the region. Case Study – Unit Standard 27771 Evaluate the effectiveness of a strategic plan for an organization This case Study on Nuplex was developed from the annual reports of the company published during the strategic plan period and is intended for academic purposes only. Case Study developed by Donald Brian Simon. Page 2 of 7  Acquisition of site in Europe by 2011 to have greater access to the European market.  Restructuring and capacity building in ANZ (Australia and New Zealand) to be started in 2015 and completed in 2018 5. NuLEAP: To generate benefits of $30 million from 2011 to 2013 and $ 12 million in 2014 6. Divestment: Sale of Nuplex Specialties and Nuplex Masterbatch for $160 million by 2013. 7. Risk Management: • To limit credit risk exposure to $435 million in 2015 • To cover currency risk with 80 -100% of 3 months forecast net currency exposure, 50% of 4 months to 6 months’ exposure and 25% of 7months to 12 months’ exposure n 2015 • To bring down LTIFR to 1.0 hours per million working hours in 2015 V. STRATEGIES 1. Financial Strategy: The financial strategy is to achieve the financial objectives through strategic acquisition or divestment decisions within the plan period. The ultimate objective is to increase the returns to the shareholders for their investments. The sales and profit budgets for the plan period is developed with considering the strategy options. 2. Innovation and Product development strategy: The strategy is to innovate products and modify existing products and continue to build on existing niche positions in the high performance coatings market that support the automotive, high end metal and protective coatings industries globally. The plan is to invest in Research and Development to build leadership positions in key global product areas. The research is oriented in developing coating resins with more ‘open time’ and reduce the ‘sag’ for a better appearance by the end of 2013 and create at least a new product once in three years to create competitive advantage for the company in the global market. 3. Safety strategy: Safety continues to be a key priority across Nuplex and the company remains focused on achieving the safety goal of ‘Zero Harm’ based on two principles: I. All employees, contractors, and visitors have the right to be safe in our workplaces. II. Neither the environment nor communities should be adversely affected by our operations and products. An integrated strategy to be followed towards the achievement of ‘Zero Harm’ concentrates on three areas: 1. Implementing consistent procedures globally; the company invests in training and resources, and apply industry best practice in their occupational health, safety and environmental policies and processes. 2. Embedding a safety culture through leadership, employee participation, effective communication and continuous improvement; and 3. Implementing best practice engineering and product standards. The integrated approach recognizes that, in addition to concentrating on reducing injuries, the need to focus on preventing high consequence events such as major fires, fatalities or environmental incidents The eight leading safety functions at all Nuplex sites are: Safety &Health in Employment (SHE) Committee Meetings, Toolbox Talks, Safety Observations, Near-Miss reporting, Attending First Aid Injuries (non-reportable injuries), Reduce Loss of Containments (Category 0 and greater) and Conduct Emergency Drills The success of safety performance is measured by I. Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) is the number of lost time injuries per million hours worked. II. Total Reportable injury rate(TRIR) is the sum of LTIs, medical treatment injuries and restricted work cases per million man hours worked. III. Greenhouse gas emission rate (GGER) is the total emissions mass produced by the operations, expressed in CO2 equivalents, per ton of product produced.