The Hindu Business Line : DuPont to focus on growth of safety business

Chennai, Oct. 26 The US-based DuPont, a $30-billion conglomerate, expects its safety consulting business to grow significantly with the acquisition of Coastal Training Technologies Corporation, a specialist in human resource training.

Underpinning that growth would be Coastal Training’s Chennai centre, which a few years ago fuelled the 25-year-old company’s global expansion by exploiting the power of information and communication technology and the Internet.

Wider reach

DuPont has identified commercialisation of its knowledge base in industrial safety and efficiency improvement as a major growth area over the last 8 to 9 years when it launched DuPont Safety Resources.

The acquisition is expected to give DuPont greater reach and entry into new industrial segments contributing to the growth of both companies.

Mr James R. Weigand, President, DuPont Safety Resources, said that the safety and protection business contributes about $5.6 billion to DuPont and is expected to double by 2010.

The acquisition of Coastal Training is one of the factors that will help it reach the target.

Mr Weigand is on a tour of Coastal Training’s seven hubs across the world and its Chennai centre was one of the “attractive features” that drove DuPont’s acquisition.

Over 140 of Coastal Training’s 650 employees are here. Its training programmes are now offered in 20 languages.

It has more than 7,000 learning products catering to safety, industrial skill, human resources, healthcare, Government and schools.

In India, DuPont’s safety resources business offers its services to market leaders such as Reliance and Tata Steel, he said.

DuPont’s role has primarily been that of a consultant and it worked with the senior leaders in a company.

Coastal Training will now take DuPont’s customer reach to the shop-floor level. For instance, DuPont trained over 2,000 of Tata Steel’s employees and now Coastal can help it reach more than 35,000 employees in the steel company.

DuPont has proven capabilities in the skills it has acquired over two centuries that it has been in operation. It has over 1,000 new products to protect people and increase their productivity. It has brought down its carbon footprint and made improvements in energy efficiency significantly. Following the acquisition “nothing is changing other than the ability to grow faster,” he said.

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