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Case Study #1: Product Division Chief / Polyurethane Chemicals

Rudi Ashkent left the Chicago airport in a tense state of mind. The company he worked for, Tyler Chemicals, was facing a potential sell off of his division, polyurethane chemicals. The CEO, Josh Larkin, wanted to streamline the company along profit making lines and those with most potential market share value over the next five years. Rudi was stumped for data that could convince Josh his division was facing only a short term downturn, which would be followed by significantly more favorable market conditions.

Rudi had been reading ChemMonthly, which described how a major competitor, Secane Chemicals, was moving through a redesign of its major polyurethane chemicals plant that would reduce the variety of polyurethane products it makes. Rudi knew that Secane would become much less of a competitor in his market, thereby allowing Tyler Chemicals the market advantage and potentially lead to the construction of an additional TDI train in the Houston area. Rudi needed quality numbers: market data, Tyler capacity data, plant specifications. He needed the data in a form he could present to executives, and he needed it quickly. He also knew that further questions from the board at Tyler Chemicals require his going back to the data, so the solution had to be flexible and responsive to real time management deadlines.

Rudi racked his brain for anything or anyone he knew that could help him in his present predicament. The amount of quality information he required was enormous, he knew. The degree of detail was beyond the capability of online business services, newswires and multi-client reports. Rudi needed specialized and customized assistance. He thought he remembered a blue ad with a letter T, then the words ChemPlan. Could it help with corporate strategy issues? He tried to connect to the probable web site: www.chemplan.biz. He scrolled through the product description quickly and discovered a section on questions that ChemPlan could answer, and then an email and phone number in Pennsylvania. He called 267.591.2624.

CEO Dr. Amir Nazmi responded directly to Rudi's questions, and said matter-of-factly, "We can customize our database of chemicals to suit your particular market segment requirements. This allows for greater applicability and accessibility of ChemPlan to a great number of users, big and small, in their strategic planning needs. Would you like us to arrange for a demonstration of the product? We could meet you at Tyler Chemicals headquarters in Peoria, Illinois or you could head over to our Devon offices."

Rudi was certainly uplifted, but he was also worried about price. Dr. Amir Nazmi explained that ChemPlan, made by his company, TranTech Consultants, Inc. has a wide degree of flexibility in terms of how much data is made available, and therefore, price varies according to the client's informational needs. Rudi was relieved, and after placing a call to the CEO Josh Larkin, scheduled to fly to Philadelphia to meet representatives from TranTech the following week.

A week later, in the Devon office, Rudi was learning hands-on how ChemPlan, in its Windows based interface, could empower Rudi with an array of strategic planning and competitive market questions he did not think possible to receive real time responses. Examples of some of the questions he put to ChemPlan were:

• Who is the lowest cost producer of TDI (80% 2,4 and 20% 2,6)?
  
  
• Who offers the best available technology for its production starting from DNT?
  
  
• What new TDI isomers can be manufactured in the idled Tyler Chemicals facility? What are their supply/demand figures and growth rates? What would be the costs?

Rudi thanked Dr. Amir Nazmi for his time and offered to subscribe to ChemPlan covering his specific market segment in polyurethane chemicals. It was nearly 8:30pm, and Dr. Amir Nazmi was busy preparing another slide for an international conference at which he was invited to speak, when the phone rang - it was Rudi on the way to the Philadelphia airport. "Just one more question," he said. "How frequent are the updates?" TranTech responded that updates to ChemPlan are implemented at least twice a year, and these updates are sent for a minor fee to subscribed clients.

Rudi, with authorization from the CFO of Tyler Chemicals, Janet Healy, went ahead and purchased the customized ChemPlan segment on polyurethane chemicals. He received it in the mail, an installation CD-Rom, and proceeded to make his case to management. As a result ofhis extraordinary market and cost projection data, his analysis and his plant specific information, Rudi was able to retain five out of seven product lines in his division. Informed decision making was Tyler's competitive advantage.
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Case Study #2: Corporate Planner / Water Soluble Resins

"Corporate planning is part crystal ball, part technical endeavor," Ed Cargill was explaining to his junior associate, Helena Bonini. Bonini had been with the company, Harcourt International, for six years, mostly in their chemical processing and product management divisions. She was recently promoted to corporate planning, and was being mentored by Cargill, a long serving corporate planning director at Harcourt. Bonini knew that no one could tell the future with complete accuracy, but she relied on being able to bring the right data about the present, and using scenarios, prepare the company for future trends in the extremely competitive flocculants industry.

Harcourt was a polyacrylamide producer. Bonini wondered if the plant should integrate to acrylamide while purchasing cationic monomers. She also wanted to know who were the competing producers of integrated polyacrylamides and cationic monomers, and compare their costs with those producers of polyacrylamide who purchased cationic monomers. The company wanted to invest heavily in this market segment and needed to know if they should integrate production or not.

Suppliers like Harcourt were under constant pressure to generate proposals with new clients - and were falling behind for lack of competitor information. Bonini was preparing charts for the board meeting next month, and already she knew how much her credibility was on the line with senior executives. What could she deliver that could boost the company's strategic profile in water soluble resins and increase profits? Where could she find, if not a crystal ball, then a detailed and site specific, technology specific, and importantly for Harcourt as a supplier, tradename specific market and cost data?

A quick look into her Palm Pilot did not yield contacts for all the questions she needed to answer. Then she remembered a presentation given by a man named Amir Nazmi at the Coagulants and Flocculants conference. She recalled the number of questions the audience asked of his product, and a quick call to a friend at the C&F conference allowed her to learn the name of the product he was presenting: ChemPlan. She searched on the internet and found www.chemplan.biz.

There she was briefed on the product description and a list of questions ChemPlan's interactive database was designed to answer. But she was not sure just how detailed it was. How extensively investigated was their database, and could it be modified with proprietary information from Harcourt and still be flexible enough to integrate the data? Could new processes be added for scenario purposes? Could plant expansion plans be taken into account and new costs derived?

She sent an email to trantech@comcast.net and also decided to fill out the web site's customized response form. Within 24 hours she received a response from Jason Banyai, TranTech's Database Manager. He explained that according to the process specific data needs of Harcourt International, ChemPlan's global database could be segmented and a customized subset of water soluble resins and organic intermediates decision package could be prepared for Harcourt's focus on intermediates. She asked if TranTech could send a team to Harcourt's headquarters in La Salle, Texas and arranged for an on-site demonstration.

A few weeks later, the ChemPlan team was in full demonstration mode at Harcourt, which included not only members of Corporate Planning, but also Product Management and Process Development. The questions ranged from the purely technical to costing and even takeover strategies. They were keen to know how ChemPlan allowed users, through its Modify function, to change data, create new data, and derive new cost figures. Some of the specific questions included:

• If Harcourt entered the market for cationic monomers, should we develop the process technology in-house or license it from another company?
  
  
• Given the trade names of cationic polymers as the unit of analysis, what are the components, properties, line-by-line manufacturing costs, uses, and competing products?

Ed Cargill viewed ChemPlan's functionality as a glimpse into the future of chemical decision making and as an industry standard. Helena Bonini wanted to know if Harcourt could make a long term arrangement over cost with TranTech. The Devon based company explained that the customized database decision tool could be subscribed with updates at least every six months. The product is a flexible, integrated, and extremely high quality decision tool, essential in the competitive chemicals market where informed decisions are the competitive edge.

After the team left, Helena consulted with Ed and the CEO of Harcourt, Steve Jamshee. The decision was to take ChemPlan's Water Soluble Resins database to suit Harcourt's specific needs, and to rely on the 1 day of free training with option for future training. Helena, with Ed's prompting, decided to present several scenarios to the Board, including the decision whether or not to acquire a competitor in chemical supplies, Nugent. The Board decided to move ahead with this and a year later Harcourt became the 2^nd largest dedicated supplier of polyacrylamides in North America.
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Case Study #3: Corporate Development / Superabsorbent Polymers

Jack Larson, an acquisition specialist at Jones Hawkins, a major producer of acrylic acids/acrylates, was concerned that he would not have enough cost data to evaluate a company's planned integration of glacial acrylic acid to Superabsorbent Polymers. Since most competing companies were already integrated, Jones Hawkins purchased a few smaller Superabsorbent Polymers producers in order to remain competitive, but the new acquisitions operated on different technologies. Jack needed to know which of the technologies was the most cost effective and support a business plan outlining expansion and modification of existing plants.

Jack remembered a product being used in his previous company to handle competing market projections ofisocynanate production. The product was ChemPlan. He knew through the ChemPlan newsletter, updates and year round support that ChemPlan also held a subset on superabsorbent polymers. He had Dr. Amir Nazmi"s card in his Rolodex at Jones Hawkins, and contacted him over the phone.

Dr. Amir Nazmi remembered working with Jack's former company. He said ChemPlan's detailed database was ideal for technology comparison and costing. TranTech suggested that Jack receive a demonstration of ChemPlan at Jones Hawkins' office in Philadelphia. The decision support company sent its marketing manager, Monique Keykhah, and its database manager, Jason Banyai, to demonstrate the product's extensive functionality and data quality to Jones Hawkins.

Jack recognized ChemPlan's potential, especially since he had extensive experience within different chemical companies. He could search directly for process technologies, and learn about competing plants and products in order to base his decisions on quality and sound information.
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Case Study #4: Marketing Manager / Organic Intermediate Chemicals

The number of times Jorge Bailey had to find disparate pieces of market and cost data drained resources from his assessment and decision making priorities. Even when junior associates were sent to find data, it often took at least two weeks to ascertain and another week to verify. It was costly manpower that could be used elsewhere. His company, Slough, carried through coproduction of Phenol and Acetone from Cumene. However, there was little market for Acetone, and Jorge needed to know cost and investment figures for his business plans.

He needed to identify business segments that use acetone on the one hand, and to determine which technology was the most cost effective to produce phenol without the acetone by product - from benzene, for example. He was in a quandary how to collect the necessary information and compare costs. For example, how could he discover business opportunities for making products from acetone? Such a step would reduce the company's overall risk exposure and increase its value added production. Jorge decided to call Dr. Amir Nazmi at TranTech Consultants.

"The reason why the chemicals industry is so responsive to ChemPlan," Dr. Amir Nazmi explained, "is that we customize the database to suit your specifications. Our updates are delivered twice a year and you can subscribe to other ChemPlan databases under the same licensing agreement." Jorge was intrigued, and he felt sure about the match between ChemPlan and what he needed to remain in business.

Twenty years ago, Jorge thought to himself, someone in my position could cobble some facts together and make a business decision. Now, he reckoned, the competition was too difficult, and the chemicals industry was becoming more focused and streamlined. This would be a market of survivors and laggards. He opted for the ChemPlan demo and asked Dr. Amir Nazmi if ChemPlan could provide scenarios of production centers closer to client bases. "Yes, ChemPlan is flexible enough to allow you to create scenarios and plant specifications," he said. ChemPlan could also provide Jorge with a data subset of Organic Intermediate Chemicals.

Jorge wondered how things could have operated before without such a decision reference tool. ChemPlan data, functionality and quality ensured faster, more confident decision making, greater design efficiencies, and improved cost savings for the company's bottom line. It was real business intelligence.
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