Chemical suppliers use new technologies to gain customers

New York; August 12, 2020 - despite seeing the customer center - that is, being able to foresee and meet customers' needs as a priority, nearly half (46%) of chemical suppliers say they are trying to make it right and are afraid that competitors will take their customers from Accenture (NYSE: ACN), according to the latest research.

At the same time, two thirds (66%) of chemical suppliers said that wider use of new technologies to get the right customer center could help them increase their profits by more than 10%, and about one third (35%) said that it could help them increase their profits by more than 20%.

Accenture's global buyer value study (based on a survey of 2205 material companies, industrial buyers, retailers and consumers) found that there is a basis for chemical suppliers to worry about customers being robbed by competitors, as most buyers have a choice. More than half of buyers (55%) said they could switch to alternative materials, including those from suppliers outside the chemical industry, such as replacing plastics with metals.

According to the study, the difference between what customers and consumers want and what chemical companies think they want may increase the risk of customer churn. For example:

When asked about the most important product features related to sustainable development, consumers and buyers gave safer materials and durable products. But chemical companies believe that these stakeholders will say that renewable energy and recyclable products are the most important.

Chemical enterprises rank "value-added services" higher than buyers, which shows that they give priority to services that buyers do not fully value. This is particularly troublesome for chemical enterprises, because they regard value-added services as a way to achieve differentiation.

Consumers pay more attention to logistics and transportation reliability than expected.

"We also found significant differences in the assessment of relationships between chemical suppliers and buyers," said Bernd Elser, Accenture's managing director for global chemicals "Buyers value digital interfaces and experiences more because they make interaction easier and more intuitive. This means that chemical companies have the opportunity to improve customer relationships through the effective use of technology. "

The survey results show that almost all chemical enterprises (99%) are using at least one new technology, such as analytical technology or robotics technology, which is customer-centric. However, doing so requires good data, and about three-quarters of chemical companies (74%) say they face data related challenges - too much, too little, not available, or poor quality. At a virtual group meeting at this year's annual meeting of the U.S. chemical Commission, these and other customer centric views were confirmed.

”As part of our customer experience efforts, we use data to help us build relationships, and ultimately we want to invest in causal relationships between services and development and financial outcomes for our customers, "said Dan fut, Dow's chief business officer, at the panel. "Dow has done a lot of work in this area, trying to understand these correlations. We hope to provide better data than traditional investment areas when we discuss the priority investment of customer experience. "

Sucheta govil, covestro's chief business officer, also took part in the discussion. He pointed out that it is not enough just to be a product centered company, and promoting a customer-centered corporate culture is the key.

"This allows you to better map the decision-making path, build stronger relationships, and work with customers to identify common outcomes that you want to address," says govil "Recycling is a typical example of the chemical industry, and so is emissions. The value of customer focus is obvious. However, it depends on how we build, document, and make these benefits easy to understand and access. "