ECMSA rounded up another series of successful activities in 2007 and just completed a major revolution to better focus on delivery of the ECMSA vision: ‘To develop and promote leading strategic and marketing thinking in the chemical and related industries’. The old Council structure has gone, and in its place are a 4-person Executive Council to deliver, and an Advisory Council to set boundaries and milestones for the Executive Council.

The Advisory Council is now more representative and supported by the chemical industry. This will be efficiently supported by the Lejeune Secretariat which has more than proven its value over the last 2-years.

A series of events which ECMSA organised in 2007:

·                     Benchmark Strategic Marketing Phase 1 - in collaboration with GEMS – April 2007

- Event plus Qualitative Study

The Qualitative Study ‘Benchmark Strategic Marketing’ has been completed early May and is still available for purchase via the Secretariat. A follow up will follow in 2008 on Phase 2: the Quantitative Benchmark Strategic Marketing Study. A quantitative definition of strategic marketing and a mapping of strategic marketing best practice.

A quantitative situation analysis of current practice in strategic marketing in the chemicals and plastics industry, based on representative sample. A situation analysis of current practice in extended reference companies outside the chemicals and plastics industry. Basis – several hundred interviews and online survey results covering a representative sample of the chemicals and plastics industry.

·                     Collaborative Innovation in the Chemical Industry – jointly with SpecialChem – May 2007

We run an excellent event this year on Collaborative Innovation jointly with SpecialChem. It explored, based on concrete examples and real cases, how the Chemical Industry could work with both its customers and/or suppliers in order to bring more Innovation to the end-market. Success stories were presented as well as a clear view on what the key challenges for a successful collaboration aiming at developing Innovative products or solutions are.

On the second day of the conference a novel form of Collaborative Innovation Workshops were conducted in four parallel groups. This exciting experiment invited participants to collaborate amongst themselves to address specific aspects of collaborative innovation:

-          Overcoming Obstacles and Minimizing Risks of Collaborative Innovation

-          The Sharing Principles of Collaborative Innovation

-          Creating Value by Collaborative Innovation

-          The best Mindsets and Tools for Collaborative Innovation

A follow up jointly organised event with SpecialChem will follow mid October 2008 in Brussels for which a programme is foreseen early 2008. The theme is set for ‘Innovation & Marketing: How can Marketing Accelerate Innovation in the Chemical Industry?’ It will discuss how the Marketing function can contribute to the success of an Innovation strategy.

In particular it should help to understand how the specific role of the Marketing versus the other function of an organisation (in particular the R&D function). It will also discuss how Marketing is managed by the most successful chemical companies. The event should be organised around 3 sequential sessions and workshops.

Some additional detail resulting from the event will be discussed in a follow up webinar.

·                     Asia seminar co-hosted with the VCI in Frankfurt – September 2007

Another excellent event conducted early October jointly with VCI was ‘Chemical in Asia – the next Decade’. The conference was discussing how European producers could benefit from growth, while looking at the risks and challenges involved in investing in these emerging economies. Huge economic growth in Asia has been met by a surge both in demand and production of chemicals, especially in China, South Korea and India. The three are among the 10 countries with the highest foreign exchange reserves globally while the latter two are seeing a boom in consumers’ income.

However none of these countries has significant oil and gas reserves, with China expected to import 60% of its crude oil by 2020, said Simon Jones of consulting firm KPMG.

While India was unlikely to catch up with China, Speaker Jones op KPMG said, China’s petrochemicals focus would be exposed to much larger risks including possible economic downturns in industrialised regions and disturbances in oil and gas supplies from the Middle East.

China’s chemical industry has been growing by over 10% per year but would rely on exports for some time to maintain GDP growth. China has, at least on paper, the ingredients to emulate South Korea, but can the world economy sustain Chinese growth? Chinese firms were not spending sufficient funds on research and development (R&D), risking the sustainability of their industry and preventing a move into value-added downstream chemicals.

South Korea faced different challenges. After a period of strong sustained growth, Korean petrochemical players were suffering from the shift of capacities to China and higher oil and gas prices.

India, although developed in a number of specialty chemicals markets, would need to add 60m tonnes/year of ethylene capacity by 2012 to meet polymer demand.

Another joint event with VCI on geographical expansion is foreseen for November 2008.

·                     AGM & Networking Dinner – December 2007

ECMSA listened to an excellent speaker Eckard Foltin (Bayer MaterialScience AG) at ECMSA’s Annual Networking Dinner on the open innovation titled ‘From visions to products - Future Living 2020’. Bayer MaterialScience defines a strategy and tap into new business, both in existing and completely new markets. The objective is to be the solution supplier of choice around the globe with raw materials and technologies for key industries of the future. One primary task is to identify future consumer needs and new market trends (market pull) as early as possible, and to match them up with technological developments (technology push) at precisely the right time.

The speech showed practical examples on the network projects and visions of the Life in 2020

Besides our own planned activities in 2008 it was agreed to sponsors a few external events in 2008.