This week we released our first study about the current state of digitalization in the chemical industry, with an outlook on where the industry expects it to go over the next years. The survey was prepared in close cooperation with the German statistics institute of Statista, which also helped in collecting responses.

In the survey the respondents, who work for chemical companies, were asked ten questions referring to the following topics:

• The overall impact of digitalization on day-to-day working routines
• Critical challenges for the chemical industry in the future
• How prepared is the chemical industry for digitalization
• The ratio of digitally made business transactions in the chemical industry
• Digital sales or procurement channels and reasons for using them
  
  

The Impact of Digitalization on Day-To-Day Sales and Procurement Routines

The survey asked respondents if they believe that digitalization will influence their personal work in the future. The large majority, accounting for 84%, believe that their personal work will be influenced by digitalization in the future.

When asked, how strongly digitalization is impacting the respondents’ personal day-to-day working routines in sales or procurement already today, also more than half see their working routines, strongly or very strongly, influenced by digitalization.

Looking at the results, our respondents are prepared for this share to grow over the next years.

How Prepared is the Chemical Industry for Digitalization?

When we asked respondents from the industry about how prepared the industry is today for the age of digitalization, less than half of those surveyed believe that the chemical industry is well prepared today. Surprisingly, when being asked about the company which they personally work for, 57% consider their own company well prepared.

This is an interesting gap which will need to be watched in the future. It shows how companies are starting to get ready and advance in all different fields of digitalization and seem to feel a small step ahead of the competition with that.

CheMondis and Other Marketplaces and Platforms in the Chemical Industry

As the biggest and fastest growing chemical marketplace in Europe, we asked respondents about their awareness of digital sales channels in general and brands in particular.

We asked which sales and procurement channels the respondents’ companies are using today or are planning to use in the future. And we are excited about their answers. More than half (56%) are either using or planning to use B2B platforms or marketplaces, just like CheMondis. In the survey, this even beats the usage of both general and industry-specific search engines and shows how the business-oriented approach of platforms will become even more important in the future.

Next, we asked respondents about which platforms or marketplaces they have used in the past already. Almost half of the respondents have either regularly used or tried out CheMondis. This is a result, which makes us proud! Molbase.com was tried by 16% of the respondents. About a fourth has already made experiences with chembid.com, an industry-specific search engine from Germany.

The Reasons Behind Using Digital Channels in Sales and Procurement

Chemical companies do not use digital channels just for the sake of being digital, but have concrete, often financial, incentives to do so. When being asked about the reasons to move towards digital channels three answers stood out. Companies are looking to increase sales, at lower operational cost and want to use digital channels to deepen their knowledge and understanding of their existing and potential new customers.

A personal note

We as CheMondis are excited. The results show how the industry is on the move towards finding and using digital sales and procurement channels. Their major objective is generating new sales (on the supply side), while improving operational efficiency. Also, the usage of digital channels can help to better understand the individual customers’ and well as the market’s needs.

We share the believe that digital platforms for the industry such as CheMondis can help tremendously in creating deeper understanding of the market and even opening up new markets. As CheMondis we cover the entire value chain, from matchmaking to transactional services.

Buyers can find new suppliers, suppliers can broaden their market reach and both have absolute transparency over all quotes, orders and contracts (including the current status of call-offs). This helps companies to increase efficiency even when in their own company not all processes are digital yet.

If you are curious about B2B platforms and CheMondis now, we invite you to take a look at www.chemondis.com. If you come check us out, come again next week as we are launching our new website!

Now it is up to you

Are you interested in the full study results? Get them for free here. Do you have the same view as our respondents? What do you think about the status of digitalization in your industry? Leave us a comment below.

Thank you for taking the time to read the CheMondis Blog.