Why ROCE is lost between cost shock and board decision
A) THE REAL PROBLEM IN INDUSTRIAL GASES
Industrial Gas companies don’t lose value in plants.
They don’t lose it in logistics.
They don’t even lose it primarily to competitors.
They lose it between volatility and decision.
Energy price spikes.
Regulations change by country.
Customers delay or renegotiate.
And while the facts are already known,
decisions wait.
👉 ROCE erosion does not come from bad strategy.
👉 It comes from slow governance.
B) THE SOC INSIGHT (WHY SPEED IS THE STRATEGIC ASSET)
SOC — Speed Opportunity Capture treats Industrial Gases as what they are:
A capital-intensive, low-reversibility business operating in a high-volatility environment.
In such systems, time destroys value faster than competitors do.
The decisive SOC concept:
OHL — Opportunity Half-Life
OHL is the time until 50% of value is lost because of delay, even if the final decision is correct.
Typical Industrial Gas examples:
- Energy cost pass-through → weeks
- Customer portfolio repricing → 1–2 months
- Capex optionality decisions → weeks
- Regulatory arbitrage → months
If the board decision cycle exceeds OHL,
ROCE destruction is mathematically guaranteed.
SOC makes this visible and non-negotiable.
C) THE SOC INDUSTRIAL GAS BOARD (WHAT CHANGES NOW)
SOC does not add complexity.
It removes delay.
The SOC Board focuses on three things only:
1️⃣ Speed beats perfection
Decide early with 70% clarity
or decide late with 100% regret.
2️⃣ Cash-flow before volume
Every decision answers one question first:
Does this protect or destroy cash-flow before commitment?
3️⃣ Automatic triggers replace debate
- Energy cost thresholds → repricing
- Margin erosion → customer triage
- Capex → cash-flow visibility first
No renegotiation theatre.
Non-negotiable SOC Board Rules
- One decision owner
- One decision date
- One item authorized or killed per cycle
- At least one assumption killed
(“Energy will normalize”, “Volume will save us”)
THE SOC BOARD ANCHOR (INDUSTRIAL GASES)
In Industrial Gases, profit is not lost in production —
it is lost while boards wait to decide.
SOC turns:
- Volatility → timing advantage
- Capex rigidity → optionality discipline
- Regional complexity → speed arbitrage
👉 What this PowerPost is for
- A wake-up signal for Boards & CEOs
- A bridge from insight to governance
- The entry point into the SOC Industrial Gas Board One-Pager
If this resonates, the next step is simple:
put speed on the agenda — before ROCE decays.
