The global chemical industry generates a revenue of $3 trillion with the majority of the contribution coming in from the Asian region. The industry comprises a diverse and complicated range of products such as specialty chemicals, commodity chemicals, and agricultural chemicals. Increasing technological innovations and chemical expertise are expected to fuel the growth of this sector. With the relentless growth of M&A in the chemical space, companies are focusing on realigning their portfolios to improve competencies and generate higher revenues. Prominent organizations are also focusing on developing their core strengths and acquisitions to deliver growth and gain greater shareholder value. With the gradual rise in the chemical manufacturing space in the US, the chemical sales in the US is projected to hit $1 trillion by 2018. However, this sector is prone to some challenges, including :
- Stringent regulations: In the recent years, the chemical industry is witnessing overlapping regulations right from the manufacturing, labeling, and handling to the supply and storage of the products. It is estimated that US companies alone spend roughly more than $12 billion to meet the compliance requirements. The frequent fluctuations in the regulatory compliance are driving prominent companies to migrate toward the cloud to manage the cost of compliance.
- Increasing competition: Within this competitive-centric environment, staying ahead of the competitors becomes challenging as the threat of new entrants in the chemical space is relatively high. The chemical space is also witnessing competition from nontraditional sectors including the energy, utilities, and mining. To remain abreast with the competition, leading organizations are facing relentless pressures to become agile and stay in the competition.
To address these aforementioned challenges and efficiently enhance their product positioning in the market, businesses are in need of a competitive intelligence solutions. Competitive intelligence solution is often used to seek the inside view of the company’s strategy. Moreover, the solution gains accurate information about the stakeholders and influencers and accurately gains precision of the competitors’ launch data and the customer behavior.
The Business Challenge
- The Client: A leading specialty chemicals manufacturer
- Area of Engagement: Competitive intelligence
A prominent specialty chemicals manufacturer with a considerable number of manufacturing units spread across the globe wanted to profile and analyze the potential competitors and their strengths and weaknesses in the chemical space. With the help of the competitive intelligence engagement, the client wanted to focus more on the key risks and opportunities and further capture a significant market share. The primary concern for the client was to bid for a lucrative market and make better decisions to enhance their product offerings in the chemical space. Through the engagement, the specialty chemicals manufacturer wanted to seek ways to improve their cost structure, brand, and quality of their product offerings.
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The Journey
To gain advantage and provide customized offerings to the customers, Infiniti’s competitive intelligence experts carried out extensive interviews and discussions with prominent stakeholders in the specialty chemicals space. With the need to improve their distribution channel, the experts at Infiniti also compiled information across a wide array of secondary sources including news media and competitors, industry experts, trade shows and conferences, and government records.
The Solution Benefit and the Business Impact
The competitive intelligence solution offered by Infiniti assisted the client to gain real-time information into the producers and their financial standing, the technologies implemented, and the suppliers of the raw materials. The engagement also sought ways to identify the prevailing technologies in the specialty chemicals space and offered better visibility into the technology implemented and the level of sales. The engagement further helped the client to develop a future strategy in positioning and customizing their product offerings. Moreover, it helped the client gain actionable insights into the promotional strategies, distribution approaches, and product service.
The Future
The future of specialty chemicals will be driven by innovations owing to the increasing demand from end-user segments such as the construction, automotive, plastic, and electronics. On the contrary, with China contributing to the majority of the production lines, the chemical products will find their future across the Asia-pacific region with a stipulated growth in the R&D activities among this region.
A must-read case study for strategy specialists and decision makers looking to develop an understanding of the chemical industry
