" How to continue growing in the downturn?
" Yes there are people in the chemical industry daring to think this way in
the current crisis. We are reading apocalyptic announcements almost everyday in
the papers: plants idling, chapter 11, bankruptcy, deals breaking, massive job cuts,
quarterly losses, demand destruction... But at the same time, some levels donwn
in the organizations - I was tempted to say people who are facing real customers
- there are people still thinking about growing their businessses, penetrating new
markets, launching new products, revisiting their value propositions and developing
new generations of products.
How many are they? What's their weight in today's environment? Hard to tell. The
only thing we know at SpecialChem, is that among the 580 industry respondents to
our survey about the tactics to continue growing in the downturn, growth is THE
2009 PRIORITY for 51% of them! And even 76% of them if you add the ones quoting
growth as one of their top priorities. OK, they are people involved in business
development, marketing, innovation... But the BU managers and corporate executives
we talked still to think the same way on average! We welcomed these numbers with
a bit of surprise and, I must say, with a certain degree of excitment. If you want
to know more about how long they expect the crisis to last or their preferred tactics
to continue growing have a look at the
survey results. I am convinced that you will find
many interesting things in the article below.
You will also find the article written by Phil Allen as very informative.
Its' not that we want to counter-balance the general pessimism : there are obvious
reasons to be worried about the economic climate. But we feel that the people who
are fighting hard to preserve the long-term in front of massive cost reductions
also need to have a channel to access to the industry best-practices and share their
experiences about growth. Well beyond the Marketers and R&D positions.
At SpecialChem, we are launching 3 contributions for them:
- A Marketing & Innovation Newsletter
- A WebSeminar on Feb. 24th: "How to continue
business development in a downturn?"
- The creation of a discussion group on
LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=130667.
If you feel you are one of them, we would be happy to see you contributing.
If you feel you are one of them, we would
be happy to see you contributing.
Enjoy the ride. It's only the beginning.
Christophe Cabarry
Founder and CEO - SpecialChem
http://www.specialchem.com
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How to continue Business Development in Chemicals during
a Downturn: The survey report
After several weeks of buzz around the contamination of the financial crisis to
the industry, followed by huge announcements from chemical companies, SpecialChem
decided to run a survey on "How to continue Business Development in chemicals
during the downturn".
SpecialChem's unique position in the industry as well as its network of contacts
within the major chemical players, allowed us to collect over 570 answers in less
than 3 weeks from end of December 2008 to early January 2009.
Respondents believe in a relatively short term crisis (2009). As they do not want
to give up growth projects (growth is still the priority for 51% of them), they
will adapt their response to the downturn by ...
Customer Focus is key
Many companies succumb to the pressure to reduce spending on marketing and innovation
when times get tough, seeing them as an avoidable expense rather than an investment
in value. This is a false economy. Marketing and innovation is not just about products,
promotion and advertising, marketing and innovation are key strategic elements in
managing a business for greater profit and they are absolutely critical disciplines,
especially when times get tough - enabling your company to make the right strategic
choices and decisions in terms of focus and resource deployment...
Return on Innovation
Most business and marketing managers have been asked since many years to demonstrate
Return on Investment. ROI regarding business decision, marketing strategy, new product
launch, etc. A common ground has been established but when it comes to Innovation,
measuring the "Return on Innovation" is a completely different mecanism.
How Return on Innovation should be measured?
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WebSeminar
How to continue business development in a downturn? Christophe
Cabarry (SpecialChem)
Feb. 24th,2009
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Register Now!
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Where to meet us
You can met Hervé Heinrich (VP -
CAS) at our 2009 ECS Breakfast on April 1st, 2009 in Nuremberg.
More information!
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Copyright 2009 SpecialChem S.A., 100 rue Petit, Paris, France 75019.
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