Functional excellence has been systematically pursued by many chemical companies since the 1990s, especially in the area of operations, sometimes under the label „Lean“, „Six-Sigma“, or other management philosophies often adapted from other industries, so that many thought there was nothing more to extract out of it. The area of functional excellence had an important comeback since the 2009 financial crisis, as a series of dramatic changes in the world economy raised the bar for best practices in all functions of a company: increased volatility in demand and commodity prices challenging supply chain and manufacturing to become more agile and risk-free, growing  hypercompetition, challenging manufacturing and most functions to reduce costs, leadtimes, and time to market, and – more recently –consolidation, with new, big players resulting from mergers that threaten smaller companies that are not able to differentiate themselves. We believe that functional excellence will remain a key element of differentiation to build and protect competitive advantage for the next 5-10 years, after which digitalization will have likely changed the rules of the game in many industries and functions. In fact, we see functional excellence as an enabler for digitalization during its incubation period, and believe that successful chemical companies will pursue both, hand-in-hand.

Want to know more?

Contact  Lorenzo Formiconi