UnCommoditized: Uncommon Ideas for Commoditized Markets

Book excerpt: Commodity industries, such as oil and gas, chemicals, metals and mining, and many others, can be described as follows: You have to invest several billions of dollars into your facilities, your market grows slowly and in line with the gross domestic product at best, you can barely differentiate your product, and your sales price and cost structure are highly cyclical. Does this environment sound attractive to you? Managers find these markets frustrating, investors find them difficult, and business school graduates find them boring. Yet, there are several companies that consistently outperform others and create billions of dollars in shareholder value, such as ExxonMobil, Methanex, Cargill, or Koch Industries. How are these companies doing it? This book provides answers with basic micro-economic concepts and real-world case examples. Many of the explanations appear counter-intuitive to commonly applied industry practices, thereby providing for "uncommon ideas in commoditized markets."