As a veteran of the chemical industry, I’m struck by how slow the uptake of digital commerce has been. We’ve worn the label of laggard for decades and, while many attempts have been made over the last 30+ years, adoption of digital commerce technologies and processes have failed to grow into any significance. Most of the multibillion-dollar firms I worked with (including our customers and suppliers) never approached conducting even 10% of their business via digital commerce.
Erik Viens
Erik Viens is an advisor and founding member of the ChemVM Board. He has over 30 years’ experience applying technology to streamline and integrate operations to better serve customers. He has focused on providing data & insight into how businesses serve the chemical industry and create value. Throughout his career, Erik has achieved success with digital transformation and constantly finds new ways to advance his firm’s competitiveness and profitably. He is recognized as an innovator has been appointed to serve on many advisory boards. Erik received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Rhode Island. He served as CIO of Univar ($10B), Global CIO for INVISTA ($10B, Koch Industries) and over 20 years with DuPont in the US, Europe and Asia.
Recent Posts
In Part 1 of this article, I describe how our current system of buyer/supplier collaboration in the chemicals market has enormous inefficiencies and suggest we embrace a more efficient, data-driven B2I approach to serving customers in chemical market. Evolving to a B2I model allows the IDEAL chemical & service supplier to create superior value for their customer with reduced costs for all by serving each customer very specifically with precisely what they need and when they need it. In this second installment, I'll describe how we get there. You may not find it surprising to discover that it requires a digital-first approach.
In my nearly four decades in the chemical industry, I’ve been lucky to see so many changes for the greater good. Mostly driven by technology (with smart regulations), we’ve created a safer, cleaner and more efficient and effective market. These changes have allowed innovation from the molecular level to the research and manufacturing processes and the safe and efficient delivery of chemistry to where it is needed worldwide.
In Part 1 of this story, I noted that while the way we, as consumers, buy books and groceries to how we rent lodging or find transportation has completely transformed, the buying process in the chemical industry has changed very little. However, in the four decades that I've worked in this industry, never have we faced greater change than now, and this dramatic digital transformation is happening due to three key drivers: Business, Technology and Societal.