Globalization chemical industry challenge

The major trends in the chemical industry are likely to continue over the next years. Globalization will go on, and the huge Asian market will provide further opportunities but also challenges (see Chapters 7, 32, and 33). GDP growth in Asia will lead to a bigger market, but also to higher salaries, at least in the urban centers. Growth in traditional markets will be very limited. 

REACH seeks to address universal challenges on the lack of risk data and the poor quality of many safety data sheets (SDS). With its dominant role in the global chemicals market, the EU could be ideally situated for propagating change through international supply chains. Even the prospect of REACH has already catalysed change within the chemical industry. 

The global ban on these horrible weapons has now become an unquestioned norm in international law. Its effective implementation directly contributes to our enhanced security and to the peaceful development of chemistry and the chemical industry. This text provides an in-depth analysis of the challenges to be confronted and the opportunities to be seized in the realization of a world free of chemical weapons. 

To many managers in the chemical industry, these concepts appear too far removed from the very practical challenge of organizing their businesses for optimum effectiveness and efficiency. They are looking for a structure that is both simple and robust, and that delivers their global and regional strategies. 

Global growth will further compound the societal challenge. Figure 4.13, shows chemical industry sales and population by country/region of the world. The arrows show the incremental sales that developing countries/regions would have if they were to reach one-half of the developed world s chemical intensity. 

For many in the chemical industry these claims may sound hollow. Everyone knows that global expansion of the chemical industry, even with good faith efforts to comply with safety and pollution requirements, is assumed to carry with it adverse and unintended effects from chemical production and use. Such is the price of economic growth - correct Wrong. In fact, our passive acceptance of this paradigmatic view of the chemical industry may pose the most formidable obstacle to change. If so, the challenge may be more in our minds than our capabilities. 

The dominant trends would seem to indicate movement toward a more simplified chemical industry in the 70s but, in reality, the industry will become more complex. The new-type global competition, the growing commodity segments, the new market and product opportunities, and the rapid diversification of the industry are some of the key challenges to be met by marketing in the 70s. (See opposite.)... 

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