E-commerce hype may have disappeared, but there's always the weather. Hundreds of chemical industry executives braved dire forecasts of the 'Snowstorm of the Century' and made their way to Chemical Week's eBusiness conference in Philadelphia last week, and their instincts were right.
Some people still fear e-commerce, and some still think it's a passing fad.
But an increasing number of our executives are convinced of its potential to increase revenue, margins, and customer satisfaction. That and other acquisitions led to a labyrinth of internal IT and related systems, many of them expensive to maintain and incompatible. We had to do something just to keep the wheels on the cart, and we quickly realized that a new platform and e-business can add up to substantial value. So the group has a hearty budget and 150 of the company's top people working on e-transformation full time over the next two years, Hoechner says. Priorities include developing a common IT system and global e-business template.