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Optimizing the supply chain is on every manufacturer’s mind these days. One of the most overlooked areas in business, particularly when companies switch to e-procurement, is strategic sourcing. Emerging the strategic sourcing strategy is an important part of the purchasing and supply management process. Strategic sourcing is a reasonable process involving the application of tools by skilled, competent and educated people; however - developing and applying strategic sourcing is a functional process.
Best practices in sourcing and procurement have advanced quickly in recent years, with technology enabling developments in the use of cooperative supplier management , sales, e-procurement, better costing and benchmarking but despite those firms are reporting moderate to extreme margin pressure due to a commodity up cycle. The volatility is likely to continue, as long as markets remain dominated by the high frequency traders and their computer games.
The trend at this very moment is that customers continue reducing inventories and partly postponing orders in hopes of falling prices in the final quarter of 2011, amid on-going market turbulences and worries over global economic prospects. But what brings the Year 2012 and the years that follow? There can be no argument that 2011, interrupted by pricing volatility and uncertainty, has proven a pretty complicated year for the petrochemical industry.
New burdens are emerging from Middle East producers who continue to eye the nearby European market with the competitive advantages of relatively lower feedstock costs backed by increasing capacity that continues to come online. Is the European chemical market currently at a disadvantage?
In the wake of the REACh application in the European Union, several Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea have recently updated their chemical management rules to close the regulatory gap they see between REACh and their own regulatory systems. These changes, including new duties and requests, will impact chemical companies which focus on the Asian market.

The industry is still wide-open to some challenges, the most significant being poor logistics, tight raw material supply and the lack of experienced management.

Tight supply has enforced a period of unmatched price volatility on producers and consumers since March last year. Players expect the volatility to continue until 2015. The pressure to maintain margins by passing feedstock price climbs on to downstream customers has been enormous along the whole value chain in Asia. However, the conquest of price changes has depended on the strength of downstream demand right down to the end-consumer.But what is likely to happen after 2015?

What is the future of chemical industry and evolution of the markets? Will the turbulences in the market effect global organizations beyond repair? Will the lack of raw materials due to high competition push firms to go beyond the stereotypes and bring the new opportunities or there is totally new era in front of us? Companies switch their focus from survival to long term strategy development. Join this event to examine to which extend there will be a need to reshape the global chemical industry in the next few years. Understand the leading issues and priorities of procurement organizations for the coming year!

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