A top 5 global category leader had been approached by and was considering acquiring a disruptive upstream supplier that used a novel process of production for a new ingredient.
SPRIM stepped in to determine risk, feasibility and scientific validation of the innovative ingredient.
While the finished product was proposed as a cost-saving, sustainable innovation, SPRIM found many risks involved.
The client engaged SPRIM to determine at-scale feasibility centering on scientific to operational potential, given the novel process of production the supplier demonstrated in its pilot facility.
SPRIM was introduced to the prospective acquisition target as the operational and scientific validation team responsible for reviewing the various models in the supplier’s business plan. SPRIM quickly deployed its subject matter experts and due-diligence practice leaders to review data dumps, cycle back questions, and finalize a recommendation.
SPRIM’s SME and Ph.D-led team isolated two high-failure points in the scientific process, while also providing comparative evaluation versus other upstart suppliers attempting similar processes.
The supplier’s new process had four times the number of steps for producing the finished product, but was proposed as a cost-saving, sustainable innovation. SPRIM identified multiple high-risk elements of the process that all could potentially cause failure of the entire model. These identifications ranged from supply chain restrictions, microbiological observations, thermodynamic issues, and staffing shortfalls.
After multiple conferences with the acquisition candidate and model revisions, SPRIM provided a proposed move-forward model designed to turn a binary decision into a stage-gate process that allowed for the supplier to demonstrate model risk reduction and increased client certainty at various acquire-points throughout the scale-up plan.
