Bain & Company hired to review TASA operations in Peru

Peruvian fish oil and fishmeal producer Tecnologica de Alimentos Somos (TASA) brought in Bain & Company to boost profitability after a poor 2017. The management consulting firm has recently completed its analysis and has provided strategic planning advice. The results of the analysis will not be made public. 

TASA brought in the Bain & Company to shake up it’s business model and reshuffle management amid over $100 million in revenue losses. In 2016 the company’s revenue was roughly $330 million however last year, that number fell to just over $200 million. At its hight, TASA was turning over $500 million a year. 

In the recommendations that the consulting firm offered TASA were management and structural initiatives aimed at increasing the pre-tax profit margin. They include shedding less profitable divisions of the company, a management reshuffle and staffing cuts. 

The company has begun implementing some of the suggested changes from the study conducted by Bain & Company. TASA's research and development (R&D) department has already been axed and the company is considering cutting the less profitable human consumption fishing unit. The consulting firm is also said to have suggested hiring a younger, more diverse workforce, recruiting new executives and strategically letting people go. 

"We have concluded a strategic planning process to define plans and actions for the next three-to-five years. It is a usual process that we do periodically in TASA, in order to seek improvements and efficiencies in the operations,” said one TASA spokesman.

“We are convinced that TASA will continue to be a benchmark of leadership, ethics, solidity, quality, transparency, efficiency, innovation and sustainability in the fishing industry world in the future," he added.

Another option which the spokesman said was not a strategic recommendation from Bain was focused on selling the company. However, Grupo Breca, the parent group who owns TASA said that they were open to a “good offer”. The company is also considering expanding into into China with the forecasted sale of China Fishery Group later this year, in a bid to increase productivity. 

The firm worked with Bain & Company's offices in both Mexico and China for the operational review. Bain & Company is one of the world's leading management consulting firms. Their office in Mexico City consists of over 80 consultants from countries including: Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala as well as the United States, Italy, Estonia, Spain and Austria.

The consulting firm has been operating in Northern Latin America since 1996 and has extensive expertise in strategy, marketing, organization, operations, technology, digital, advanced analytics, transformations, mergers & acquisitions and private equity. 

The TASA spokesman said that the company was “pleased” with Bain’s work on the project. “We are very satisfied with the conclusions of the strategic planning, which obviously we are not going to make public.”