The Customer Bond column has been providing for a decade an exchange platform for sales and marketing professionals in the fine and speciality chemicals industry. Born from the necessity to deal with low cost competition and avoid the commodity trap, the Customer Bond column has advocated for a customer centric approach to gain a sustainable competitive advantage in the market.
The free movement of capital, goods and services during the first decade of the century has flattened the world while rendering markets more efficient and exacerbating competition. With access to technology, plant and equipment no longer a barrier, the Asian economies moved swiftly to develop the required human resources to back up early gains. They are now reaping the rewards: projections showed China and India’s economic growth to 2050 twice as big as the top Western economies combined!
Then COVID struck!
The wisdom of thirty years of globalization was brought into question in a short three months. As doctors in New York dawned garbage bags as PPE, the wisdom of concentrating of production in Asia, the lengths of the supply chains and the entire social construct behind this set up suddenly appeared doubtful.
This was the opening for governments to reassert a leading role as stewards of the economy. The previously global vaccine market split suddenly into easily recognizable patterns along NATO, Belt and Road Initiative, and Russian or Indian spheres of influence.
The EU commission is working already towards a new Pharmaceutical Strategy (1) while the US is also considering its pharmaceutical supply chain security under Executive Order 14017 (2).
The government interventionist stance is not the prerogative of the pharmaceutical industry. Numerous strategic initiatives and mandates span other fields of direct interest to the chemical profession from plastic recycling to electric vehicles to fuel and solar energy.
In addition to return of Big Government, ESG investment criteria driving the sea change of CSR self-regulating business models puts our daily activities in a larger framework where short term gains are continuously measured against long term losses.
These are profound structural changes that will affect all activities taking place at the market interface from purchasing to public relations to strategic marketing and communications.
In conclusion, the third decade of the 21st century is an inflection point for the future of the fine and speciality chemicals industry. The Customer Bond column will continue to provide you the platform to exchange ideas and cross pollinate our industry with the best management practices in the field.
We look forward to your contributions.
REFERENCES AND NOTES
- https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0761
- https://www.akingump.com/en/news-insights/americas-pharmaceutical-supply-chain-an-overview-of-the-policy-landscape-and-potential-path-forward.html
