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Interview with Wheeler Crawford Why is stewardship so important to the chemical industry? Stewardship is good for business. We all live on this Earth and we all draw sustenance from its natural resources. We have a responsibility to employees, customers, and ourselves and to the population in general to be good stewards and to promote stewardship. We are an intelligent but fragile species and must devise ways to manufacture, distribute and use the chemical products we produce safely. This is an expectation of our customers. People buy our products because they perceive that they have value to them. They will not buy them if their value is perceived as being diminished by creating problems in using them or disposing of them or the products made from them. Perception is reality. One thing I observed, during my tenure as business manager of the Texaco Chemical Company’s Specialty Chemical Group, was that environmental regulations, mostly related to amines, our principal products, created new product and marketing opportunities. For example, we had a large customer base for a secondary amine in metalworking fluids. A new regulation in Germany (Rule 611) prohibiting the use of secondary amines in metalworking fluids, because they were procarcinogens, spread throughout the EEC and the States. We dropped promoting this product immediately and would not sell into this market. Instead we marketed an isomeric primary amine for the same application. At the same time another widely used primary amine came under attack by customers because of its high vapor pressure and irritating odor. We stopped promoting it and started offering the same primary amine we were offering to replace the aforementioned secondary amine. This has grown into a very large business. I was interviewed for a trade journal directed at the lubricant market about the use of amines in general in lubricants. I used this as an opportunity to preach the mantra of responsible marketing. In essence, I pointed out that amines perform a very useful function in lubricants which is not easily duplicated by other functionally competitive technologies. Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Use amines responsibly and before using any amine, first screen its EHS profile-before cost and performance. If it doesn’t make the cut, no amount of wishing will help, no matter how inexpensive it is or how well it performs. One competitor began offering another secondary amine to replace the first one, even though published data showed its toxicology profile was worse than that of the first amine. When I came across this in the marketplace, I informed the user of the toxicology issues with both and pointed out he now knew and henceforth he would be deliberately using a bad actor. Most switched to our alternative. Use your energy and resources to innovate and improvise. Communicate what you are doing to your customer base. The chemical industry has an excellent record in this area. Make stewardship a positive contributor to profitability. Don’t cringe and cry. The glass is half full, not half empty. What’s going to make a company successful in 2010 and beyond? This is a two-edged sword. What’s up (or down) with the economy and what should we do to improve our business regardless of the economy. Recessions aren’t officially over until the referee calls time out. In this case the referee is the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research. The NBER is the nation’s leading non-profit economic research organization. Its credentials are well established. They say it is premature to call and end to this recession. On the other hand Haver Analytics which maintains over 550 data bases from both government and private sources, says it ended last June. I don’t know who is correct but based on the stock market, things look rosier. My personal fear is the lag in job growth. When people are working they have income to spend and this drives the economy. Where have all the jobs gone and what can we do to jump start this? My other fear is the National Debt. Servicing this will probably require higher taxes and higher taxes have a dampening effect on the chemical business. What should we do ourselves? We can’t afford to expend our energies worrying and wring our hands. We have to run our businesses. Stay focused on the customer and communicate with him, foster innovation in all our business processes and maintain our sales and marketing presence. What benefits for the industry can be achieved through conferences like Informex? This is easy – COMMUNICATION and INFORMATION. No one can be successful in business, particularly in down cycles, if they have their heads in the sand. When an ostrich does this you know what is exposed. Two + heads are always better than one. Ego sometimes gets in the way and we act like the emperor and his new clothes in the fairy tale. Conferences allow for a sharing of problems and solutions. Someone’s problem could be an opportunity for you. Look for opportunity every where. Mutual concerns call for mutual aid (within the limits of the law). Business is conducted between friends. Here friendships are made and re-enforced. Conferences are an information gold mine, especially those with product exhibitions. Information on competitive activity is literally staring you in the face. Potential customers attend to see what is available. Everyone goes on-line to search but the serious buyers take the time to come and kick the tires. One last benefit should not be overlooked. Conferences like INFORMEX are cost effective in reaching a large concentration of customers and potential customers as well as a source of market intelligence. You’ve described the specialty chemical industry as a hostile war-zone, why is this industry in particular so cut-throat? “Hostile war-zone” is an attention getting phrase, but make no mistake, marketing is very much like waging war. Many of the same principles apply. Most marketing people have read “The Art of War” and “Marketing Warfare”. I used to give new-hires in my business group a copy of “Marketing Warfare” to prepare them for the battle for business. A business plan (which we should all have) is akin to the “order of battle”. We gather market intelligence, we conduct marketing campaigns, and we seek victory in the form of market dominance. When we set up a separate specialty business, I went to one of our offices in Europe to explain what I expected from them. As part of my presentation, I showed them a picture of the President of a competitor. They did not know who he was. Strike 1. I pointed out that he wanted their jobs. They got the message, sort of. How would you describe the specialty chemical market in the Houston area? I will lump these together as they are linked. I really don’t think that there are any differences here to distinguish Houston from the rest of the nation except my perception that we are a different breed here. We handle adversity better and probably have an economy that is directionally stronger than that in other areas. Our State is pro-business which is a real advantage. We have to work to keep it that way. In the post-recovery cycle we should focus on customer relations, stress innovation in all our business processes, and remember that marketing is key. All else is a cost. | |||||||||||
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