Digitalization is a very important topic not only in the chemical industry as a whole, but also in chemical distribution. As Wolfgang Falter states in his article: Customers increasingly search online and initiate digital contacts via websites, social networks, search engines and commercial platforms. Those distributors that they do not find online are no longer present in the relevant markets.

This development has led to many discussions within the chemical distribution industry on how best to address the issue of digitalization.

CHEManager asked executives and industry experts familiar with the development of e-commerce in chemical distribution to share their opinion on what needs to be done in order to survive in an increasingly competitive environment and how to deal with a possible disruption caused by new digital developments. We wanted to know:

Will e-commerce platforms in chemical distribution be more successful today than CheMatch, ChemSystems, ChemConnect et. al. were 20 years ago?

Who in the chemical supply chain from principal to distributor, logistics provider, online retailer, start-up to customer will be winners/losers in online distribution?

What do you (either alone or with partners) plan regarding online distribution?

Robert Späth: Digitalization is a hot topic in chemical distribution recently. Start-ups appear, and projects are launched on how to digitalize the business. I welcome every new idea to make the supply chain more efficient or to facilitate communication.

"Online Platforms will Ease
the Process but not
Replace Chemical Distribution"
Robert Späth, Managing director, CSC Jäklechemie

Our business needs experience of how to handle even critical products compliant and with responsible care. Distributors are already the keepers of an immense database. They manage to serve entirely different industry sectors with many special requirements. The secret of success is to meet the expectations of each of our customers. To digitalize processes and parts of the chain makes sense. This may even include collaboration with platforms. Online distribution will ease the process for parts of the distributor’s as well as the producer’s business. It will not replace chemical distribution. The distributor is the customer’s counterpart that knows how to pull the strings. This will need digital performance as well as product applications engineering and logistics. Such a high-level service opens access to markets. Producers recognize skilled distributors as valuable partners. Distributors must not ignore the challenge of digitalization. Otherwise, they may lose their customer base and move back to simple service providers.