Comparing financial results across different countries within the PQ Group. What impact do the host countries have on the financial results of the individual organizations within the PQ Groupe and why ?

Abstract

The main purpose of this master thesis is to create a research comparing and contrasting two similar production sites within the PQ Group and analyze the different aspects of the organizations to pinpoint the main reasons for the different financial results and present the finding to management. After careful considerations, the PQ Winschoten and Lamotte sites were chosen to carry out this research. The fact that both sites reside in the European Union should give some degree of similarities of the laws govern these entities which should make it easier to compare.

To evaluate the financial performance of each entity, a number of economic and financial performance indicators will be analyzed to determine their effectiveness in contributing to the overall performance of the group. A thorough analysis of the following items will be carried-out to determine each entity’s participation in the economic and financial contributions to the group namely: assets, revenues from sales, gross margin, (net profits) – contribution margin, operating asset efficiency and return on assets.

Furthermore, a thorough analysis of the contextual and transaction factors will be made to understand the impacts that each host country has on the organization, namely elements that are outside of the control of the organizations – contextual - which they need to accept and learn to live with such as: - Geopolitics - Population - Political order - Economy - Security - Culture And factors that the companies can influence and change – transactional - to be successful in their markets such as: - Business model - HR policies - Logistics - Products adaptability - Company culture To collect the information needed to analyze the performance of both sites, several interviews will take place with both senior management, lower level employees of both sites, experts within PQ Headquarter in the Netherlands and other external experts in the field of finance and laws. Interviews will be carrying out in French, English and Dutch to make sure that people are able to express themselves as candidly possible.