Competitors

Historically, Novozymes has experienced constant price pressure in its markets, while there is considered to be a risk of increasing competition in the future from producers based in low-cost countries, particularly China and India. One of the ways in which we are trying to counter this risk is by using our technology to optimize production, thereby reducing costs per unit produced.

To maintain optimal production Novozymes is dependent, among other things, on reliability of deliveries from suppliers and, to safeguard this, cooperation agreements have been entered into with a number of key suppliers. These cooperation agreements also help to reduce the sensitivity to fluctuations in the price of raw materials and energy to which Novozymes is subject. Opportunities to pass on increases in raw material prices, for example, to our customers in a business-to-business market with large international customers are limited because of our relatively poor negotiating position in relation to major customers.

Patent strategy
Novozymes’ technology is the basis of our business, and the company pursues an active patent strategy by protecting new discoveries as early as possible in order to stop our products, etc. being copied.