Assignment

Finding market opportunities in Russia for Bluecon Wastewater Treatment

About the Company «Bluecon»

Bluecon International offers proven compact wastewater treatment units, in which domestic wastewater is blueconized into irrigation water quality. Laws still prevent the re-use of treated waste water for irrigation purposes (however, this is changing within the EU). Blueconizing is a new physical technology to purify wastewater to optimise the water cycle. The ability to blueconize domestic wastewater from villages and small towns into irrigation water, fits well in an environmental sustainable policy and re-use of water.

Unlike large-scale investments in conventional biological treatment plants, Bluecon International offers compact and modular units. The Bluecon can be realised without large complex infrastructural and sanitation systems. Bluecon International takes care of the installation, operation and service or maintenance of its units. With a multi-year contract the company can even take over the investment of the project to guarantee the quality of the irrigation water and to unburden the customer.

About the product

The purification unit of Bluecon is something new and innovative, it is a small unit, compared to traditional water treatment plants, which is ideal to construct in communities with populations from 2 000 to 10 000 people, to treat their household waste water.
There is a small YouTube animation clip about the Bluecon water treatment system available at this link: https://youtu.be/3T8oQxJNr2I.
More details about the company and its product can be found on the website: www.bluecon.nl.

Customers of Bluecon:

There is no “standard” customer of Bluecon. In the Netherlands for example, typical customers of Bluecon would be the water boards, but in different countries rules and regulations related to who is responsible for the cleaning of household waste water are different. Usually the customers of Bluecon are municipal / regional gov-ernments or semi-government agencies. But, perhaps there might be other private parties like event companies, holiday resorts or others also interested in this product! For now Bluecon has defined three market segments:
1. Municipalities (2000-10000 inhabitants)
2. City extensions / suburban neighborhoods with a Smart City concept
3. Leisure market with holiday parks, recreation parks, datcha's etc.

Bluecon is interested in the Russian market, because its system is working in such way that household wastewater can be treated in locally, and no large infrastructure like sewage pipe lines and large central treatment basins are needed. For large rural areas with small communities this system is ideal and can offer good water treatment for a reasonable price.

Assignment

The goal of the assignment is to help Bluecon with finding potential customers and if possible local Russian distributors and thirdly (partial) producers of the Bluecon sewage water treatment unit. It makes no sense for Bluecon to export complete ready-made systems to Russia, as many of the components are relatively simple components like pipes, buffers and silo’s, which can be acquired in Russia as well. Bluecon is mainly interested to export some of its key technology, for example its control system and software and the very specific polymers that it is using in the cleaning process. That means that Bluecon is not just looking for customers, but also looking for potential suppliers/partners to build the purification system.
And on top of all that, it is important for Bluecon to understand which laws and rules in Russia apply related to water treatment. Which part of the government is ultimately responsible for the treatment of wastewater and what rules have to be taken into consideration? Are there open tender procedures or other forms of procurement? Are there funding schemes available? All of these questions need some answer before Bluecon can make a solid deci-sion on how to enter the Russian market.

Research questions to student teams
For the teams working on this assignment, several research questions are formulated, in three different fields:
Rules / regulations / market entry in the water sector in Russia
• What are the risks for doing business in Russia and what kind of possible (cultural) barriers can you see?
• Which rules and regulations apply to water purification in Russia?
• Does the Bluecon system fall within the rules and regulation of water purification within the Russian Federation?

Stakeholders / Clients
• Who is responsible for water purification in Russia, and which stakeholders / roles can you identify for different parties?
• What is the size of the market for the product of the company / which customers / groups could you recommend?
• Which competing systems are in use already?
• What strategy you suggest to the company for a successful start of their business in Russia? What is the team vision on how to conquer the Russian market?

Potential partners / suppliers
• What could be appropriate distribution channels for Russia? What distributors are active there?
• Provide a list of potential producers of components and potential assembly com-panies.

Because of the huge geographic scale of Russia, it is recommended to limit your research to the geographical region of large National Parks, as there is very strict legislation in place related to treatment of domestic sewage water.

Region around Lake Baikal, one of the National Parks that is of interest for Bluecon