The Most Important Chemical Industry Issues & Pricing Strategies for 2022
The Most Important Chemical Industry Issues & Pricing Strategies for 2022 The New Year is upon us and the strategic planning processes in major chemical companies have now delivered their 2022 strategic business plans. All of them are backed by forecasts and major assumptions on the biggest chemical industry issues like sales volumes, prices, costs, and resulting margins. Now a key question is whether a pricing strategy and plan has been developed and communicated to deliver on the outcomes promised to shareholders and stakeholders. This all comes in the face of seeing in the last 12-to-18 months, the chemical industry worldwide having been under siege...
How Fair Is the Expectation That Digital Transformation Will Revolutionize the Chemical Industry?
Can Digital Transformation Revolutionize the Chemical Industry Where It Counts? Success or failure within the chemical industry lives or dies on any given business’s ability to adapt and revolutionize. If your business is merely riding the waves, trying to stay above water, it’ll soon be falling by the wayside. Only by driving ahead and revolutionizing your business will you see true success. One way in which many businesses believe they can achieve this revolution is through digital transformation. The integration of digital technology through all areas of business is increasingly prevalent throughout the chemical industry. With that, it’s becoming more...
How to Reduce Overhead and Risk in the Chemical & Process Industries
Reducing Overhead and Risk in the Chemical and Process Industries Today’s CFO encounters ever-increasing complexity in addressing the subjects of risk and overhead in the chemical and process industries. Typical risk factors include: Earnings volatility Cash flow Accurately projecting earnings in the face of business uncertainty Efficient and effective use of capital Exchange rate exposure Hedging to address raw material and currency volatility Many overhead factors contribute to complexity in today’s market. Some that capture the most attention are: Inventory and work in progress Selling and administrative costs. Investing in a pricing solution like Pricefx helps you address overhead and...
Pricing: The Real Differentiator in a Commodity-Driven Business
Pricing: The Real Differentiator in a Commodity-Driven Business Commodity-driven businesses are challenging to run successfully. Price transparency is high, and value differentials versus competition are low to non-existent, driven primarily by service differentiation. Earnings and margin targets are heavily impacted by volatility in underlying raw material and energy costs. As well documented by many consulting firms, price is the biggest lever available to a company to address earnings improvement, with far higher leverage than cost reduction or increasing volume. Additionally, most commodity-oriented businesses are mature and the temptation to improve business by seeking additional market share or volume simply leads...
How to Protect Your Margins in a Competitive Landscape (Chemical Process Industry)
How to Protect Your Margins in a Competitive Landscape Consider recent news headlines from the Wall Street Journal, reflective of ongoing change in the COVID landscape: March 18, 2021 – Oil Prices Fall on Fresh Fears of Dwindling Demand “Oil prices fell more than 7% on Thursday, recording their biggest one-day drop since September…” March 24, 2021 – Leap in Gas Prices Puts $3 a Gallon in Sight “Some analysts see further gains ahead…Booming gas prices join a recent rally in other commodities…Supporting gasoline’s climb is a rebound in crude-oil prices and a big drop in the amount of...
The Key to Keeping Customers Happy in the Chemical Process Industry
The Key to Keeping Customers Happy in the Chemical Industry In this article, we’ll explore what makes pricing in the chemical industry uniquely complex, why companies are often dealing with thousands of price points, the impact of ever-changing input costs and discover the key to winning more opportunities while protecting the bottom line! Pricing in the chemical industry is more complicated than for other industries as you often have complex product portfolios and customer pricing is often negotiated individually. This pricing can come in the form of spot or negotiated pricing for customers, or indexed or formula pricing for...
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How the Chemical Industry Can Learn from 2020 and Prepare for 2021
Chemical Industry – Learn From 2020 and Prepare for 2021 Last year presented a lot of challenges for the chemical industry. Robert Smith, an industry expert at Pricefx, even wrote an article on ideas for what the chemical industry could do to prepare when it was clear that suddenly, “business as usual“ would not be enough to sustain an organization. Well, it’s almost been a year or so since “lockdown”, “quarantine” and “face mask” became part of our daily vocabulary, so, it’s time we took a look back at 2020 and forward to 2021 and beyond. We spoke to Martin...
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Addressing the Impact of the Coronavirus on the Chemical and Process Industries
What is the Impact of COVID-19 on Chemicals and Process Industries? We’ve now conducted business for several months under the shadow of COVID-19, and it’s likely dramatically impacted our businesses and goals for 2020. Some sectors have seen significant decreases in demand for products, which may be starting to rebound as economies reopen and employment increases. Some sectors more closely tied to medical, hygiene, and food packaging have seen unprecedented demand and challenges in maintaining supply to customers. A high degree of uncertainty remains on business conditions for the months ahead, as economies restabilize and the potential for a second wave of COVID-19...
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Speed Drives Sales, Time to Step on the Gas!
Key Takeaways: Lengthy sales cycles lead to lost deals Prospective buyers have often already performed 57% of the buying cycle before contacting you Having the ability to align your pricing globally leads to more successful deal closing The longer a lead lingers, the more likely it’s lost. Ask any salesperson, not being able to react to opportunities in a timely fashion, with informed pricing, will leave you out in the competitive wilderness. So, if you are not leveraging a fast, dynamic price management solution into your sales process, you are setting yourself up for a financial fall. Time to take...