In this report we explore the challenges currently facing the chemical industry and examine how its most successful players are tackling them, to maintain growth and drive profits.

The label of VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) is becoming increasingly appropriate to the chemical industry. In addition to the usual pressures, such as fluctuating markets and raw materials volatility, new challenges such as the growing complexity of regulations, a talent crisis and the emergence of low-cost local competition need to be faced.

Some chemical companies continue to put their energies into growth through acquisition and playing the broader market. Others are finding greater success by concentrating on the core business, and finding profit in efficiency, higher productivity, and more solution-specific innovation. They’re pivoting in response to changing market factors, constantly refocusing their efforts to where success lies.

To achieve this agility, successful players have brought together all elements of their once-siloed operations: critical data, laboratory, supply chain, manufacturing and financial systems. They’re embracing ERP and CRM practices, to help them refine their businesses, accelerate product development, and understand their customers’ current and future unmet needs.