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Helping clients understand chemical industry evolution and latest trends with the depth of our research capabilities to help them unlock new opportunities

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What We Do

Vendor identification
Sector scan
Supply chain mapping
Customer needs assessment
Market potential assessment
Pricing & cost benchmarking
Brand health diagnostic
Vendor NPS diagnostic
Client NPS diagnostic
M&A screening
Voice of customer
Voice of vendor
Trade margins assessment
Export market assessment
Manufacturing process research
Micro-market identification
Bundled services opportunity evaluation
Digital adoption benchmarking
Sustainable practices benchmarking
Best processes benchmarking
Employee retention and NPS
Staff compensation benchmarking

Vendor identification

How many vendors are currently registered with / connected to the player? How many of these are its active vendors?
What does the procurement process look like? Who are the key personnel involved? Who are the decision makers?
What is the mix of ARC & RFQ?
What are the key selection criteria for identification of suitable vendors?
What are the key pain points player faces with vendors? How are other vendors solving for this problem?

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Sector scan

What key segments constitute this sector? How have they been growing over the past 5 years? What are the key growth drivers?
What is the market size, overall and by segments and categories? How are the segments estimated to grow in the next 5 years? Why?
What are the key players operating in each segment? How do they stack up against each other?
What are the key products and services they are providing? What needs are they fulfilling?
What are the headwinds and tailwinds in this sector?
What are the key technological advancements this sector has seen? What are the emerging technologies?
How has the investment activity been in this sector in the recent past? How will this continue / change in the near future? Which segments will attract investment and why?

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Supply chain mapping

Who are the key upstream suppliers the player / sector is dependent on? What specific raw materials / finished goods do they supply?
How are the suppliers geographically located? How are they logistically linked to the player(s)?
What is the monthly / annual requirement of raw materials / semi-finished goods by the player(s)? Which suppliers are fulfilling this demand? What is the mix of raw materials / semi-finished goods supplied?
What kind of transportation and logistics costs are involved in the supply process?
What kind of margins do these suppliers enjoy?
How do costs and margins vary across the year (peak / non-peak season)?

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Customer needs assessment

What are the key chemical products required by customers?
What are the key purchase criteria across different product categories?
What are the product offerings customers are aware of and currently using?
What is the frequency / volume of usage and use cases across product categories?
Are there any product offerings not available to customers? If yes, why?
What are some of the unmet needs across existing products and reasons thereof?

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Market potential assessment

What is the size of the addressable market (TAM, SAM)? What are the key growth drivers and inhibitors?
What are the different customer segments and how do requirements vary across these segments?
Who are the key competitors and what are the attributes of their offerings? How are they fulfilling customer requirements? What are the key unaddressed pain points of customers across segments?
How does the brand’s / player’s existing offerings compare to those of key competitors?
What is the potential business upside/ risk across customer segments?

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Pricing & cost benchmarking

What is the structure and breakup of cumulative cost across? What are major cost heads?
How are various cost heads compared with competition?
What are the areas of improvement for the client with respect to competition?
What are the global best practices for cost optimization?
What are some of the short-term and long-term actions that can help optimize cost?
What are is the profit pool across supply chain partners? How is it different from competitors?

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Brand health diagnostic

What is the degree of brand awareness with respect to competitors?
What are the key values associated with the brand?
What are the typical avenues for introducing brand to customers?
What is the effectiveness of various channels for brand introduction?
How does brand awareness change with client profile, industry, size, etc.?
How important is brand in the sale process?
What are some of the best practices to strengthen brand value?

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Vendor NPS diagnostic

How likely is the vendor to promote respective chemical company?
How does the NPS vary across regions and raw materials sourced? How is it compared to the competitor companies?
What are the key reason for vendors to be a promoter / detractor?
What are various vendor management areas chemicals company improve upon?
How is vendor stickiness across various raw materials sourced?
What are the triggers that would lead to vendor churn at an chemicals company?
What are the relative strengths and weakness that have the highest impact on NPS?

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Client NPS diagnostic

How likely is the client to promote respective chemical company?
How does the NPS vary across regions and products and how does it compare with key competitors?
What are the key reasons for a client to be a promoter / detractor?
What are the improvement areas across product / service categories?
What is the level of stickiness across product / service categories?
What are the triggers that would make clients shift to another chemicals company?
What are the relative strengths and weaknesses that have the highest impact on NPS?

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M&A screening

What key segments constitute this sector? How have they been growing over the past 5 years? What are the key growth drivers?
What is the market size, overall and by segments and categories? How are the segments estimated to grow in the next 5 years? Why?
What are the key players operating in each segment? How do they stack up against each other? How have they been growing in the past 5 years? What is their future growth outlook?
What are the key products and services they are providing? What needs are they fulfilling?
What are the headwinds and tailwinds affecting growth of these key companies?
What are the key technological advancements these companies have incorporated? What are the emerging technologies?
How has the investment activity been in these companies in the recent past? How will this continue / change in the near future? Which companies will attract investment and why?

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Voice of customer

Which players are clients most satisfied with across product categories and why?
How has their experience been with different offerings across different product categories?
What are the reasons for preference of a particular player over others?
How do clients rate the sales and service experience?
What are the improvement areas across product categories?
What is the level of stickiness across product categories?
What are the triggers that would make clients shift to another player?
What are the key elements to provide a comprehensive client experience?

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Voice of vendor

Which buyers are vendors most satisfied with across product categories and why?
How has the vendors’ experience been with supplying different raw materials / finished semi-finished goods across different product categories?
What are the reasons for preference of a particular buyer over others?
How do vendors rate the sales and service experience?
What are the improvement areas across product categories?
What is the level of stickiness across product categories?
What are the triggers that would make vendors shift to another buyer / product category?
What are the key elements to provide a comprehensive vendor experience?

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Trade margins assessment

What is the structure and breakup of cumulative cost and margins across? What are major cost heads?
How are various cost heads and margins compared with competition?
What are the areas of improvement for the client with respect to competition in order to maximize margins?
What are the global best practices for margin maximization?
What are some of the short-term and long-term actions that can help maximize margins?
What are is the profit pool across supply chain partners? How is it different from competitors?

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Export market assessment

What is the size of the addressable export market (TAM, SAM)? What are the key growth drivers and inhibitors?
What are the different customer segments and how do requirements vary across these segments?
Who are the key competitors and what are the attributes of their offerings? How are they fulfilling customer requirements? What are the key unaddressed pain points of customers across segments?
How does the brand’s / player’s existing offerings compare to those of key competitors?
What are the logistics costs and dependencies involved?
What is the potential business upside / risk across customer segments?

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Manufacturing process research

What are the raw materials required to manufacture the key products of the player? How do these stack up vis-à-vis the raw materials used by key competitors? Where are these sourced from?
What does the manufacturing process look like? What is the capacity and throughput? How does this vary seasonally?
What is the readiness of the manufacturing infrastructure and capacity to meet sudden high demand?
What are the costs involved, in terms of sourcing raw materials as well as in the manufacturing process?
What is the level of waste / scrap produced? How are these disposed of / liquidated / sold? How are key competitors limiting and handling this?

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Micro-market identification

What is the nature of opportunity in each micro-market? What are the typical customer requirements of these micro markets?
Who are the key competitors and what are the attributes of their offerings in each micro-market?
What is our market share (points of presence / sales capacity, number of customers, business volumes / revenues)?
How do our existing offerings compare to those of the market leader?
What are the key gaps in our product focus / sales strategy / distribution strategy across micro markets?
What is the potential business upside / risk across micro-markets?

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Bundled services opportunity evaluation

What are the parameters followed to assess the potential opportunity?
How does the economics benefit with providing a suite of services together? How does it benefit the end customer?
What are the bundled services opportunities evaluation criteria followed by competitors?
What are some of the global best practices followed?

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Digital adoption benchmarking

What is the current penetration of digital processes / attributes across processes?
What are the key drivers for and bottlenecks to digital adoption?
What are the KPC for going digital as compared to physical / conventional modes?
What is the impact of incentives to drive adoption of digital modes?
Which touch points in digital journey should be made seamless to increase adoption?

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Sustainable practices benchmarking

What are the global benchmarks for sustainable practice in chemicals sector?
How do client's sustainable practices fare with that of global / Indian?
How do client's sustainable practices fare with that of competition?
What steps are required to be implemented to reach the sustainability benchmark requirement?

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Best processes benchmarking

How do the key metrics of our business processes (e.g. turnaround time, first-time right, NPS, etc.) compare with competitors?
What are the areas of process improvements based on a time and motion study?
What are the hands-on-time and wait time for each step of the process?
What steps of the process can be eliminated or automated?
What are the customer experience and efficiency gains for customers?

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Employee retention and NPS

How satisfied are the employees with the chemicals company across different parameters?
What are the areas of strength which employees would like the chemicals company to continue and build on?
What are the key improvement areas?
How satisfied are the employees with their career path in the company?
How likely are the employees willing to recommend the chemicals company to others?

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Staff compensation benchmarking

What are various components of the compensation across various departments and hierarchy?
How is staff compensation across various department and hierarchy compared to competitors?
What are various additional perks across the hierarchy? How are these additional perks compared to perks offered by competitors?
What are the key improvement areas for client as compared to competitors?

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Related Case Studies

Conducting a brand track for a textiles company

Objective

A large textiles company wanted to run a brand track wherein they wanted to track customer decision making process, usage trends, brand funnel, NPS & experience

Methodology

Conducted in-depth interviews with procurement managers of end-use clients to understand key decision-making process for sourcing raw materials, usage trends and key considerations (N = 15)
Conducted quantitative survey (N = 150) with small and mid-sized clients of textiles company on a quarterly basis to understand NPS, key strengths and improvement areas, brand funnel and how these are changing with time
Conducted quantitative survey (N = 50) with small and mid-sized clients of competitor firms on a quarterly basis to understand relative NPS, strengths and improvement areas

Impact / Outcome

Client understood key strengths and improvement areas to increase share of wallet of its key customers, and also for acquiring new customers

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India opportunities assessment for an international specialty chemicals player

Objective

The client wanted to understand market opportunity for specialty agrochemicals in India

Methodology

Sized the agrochemicals market in India and estimated growth in the next 5 years, taking into account key growth drivers, end-users and regulatory scenario
Study included understanding the supply scenario and key challenges and bottlenecks via primary interactions with major players operating in India (N = 10)
Primary interactions with key end-users to understand demand scenario, specific requirements and pain points (N = 30)
Secondary research and literature review were carried out to understand the above points.

Impact / Outcome

Sized the India market and estimated growth for next 5 years
Client was able to understand key demand nuances and requirement gap, and how their value proposition can win long term customers

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Mapping the process of raw material replenishment in specialty chemicals manufacturing plant

Objective

A mid-sized textiles company wanted to understand best practices for raw material replenishment and receiving by mapping the process followed by key competitors

Methodology

Conducted in-depth interviews with manufacturing plant managers and procurement teams of key competitors to understand their raw material replenishment process end to end (N = 20)
Conducted in-depth interviews with warehouse managers and staff to understand warehouse receiving process starting from receiving, inspection and storage) (N = 25)
Created flow charts to explain the processes in detail, recording nuances by geo, raw material type and vendor size
Identified best practices and formulated the ideal replenishment and receiving process for the client

Impact / Outcome

Client understood and was able to create a replenishment and receiving process to minimize production stoppages, maximize capacity utilization and also control costs

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Benchmarking price and margin of a dyes & pigments offered by vendor / distributor in the market

Objective

A mid-sized paints manufacturing firm wanted to benchmark price of dyes & pigments offered by vendors / distributors in the market as well the margins earned by them, in order to shortlist L1 & L2 vendors

Methodology

Conducted in-depth interviews (N = 25) with vendors and distributors of dyes & pigments to understand their procurement price, terms of sourcing, rate contracts and margins
Conducted in-depth interviews (N = 40) with end customers using dyes and pigments as raw materials to understand the price at which they are able to source the raw material (also the price quoted and room for negotiation), their L1 & L2 vendors and key drivers behind the decision.
Conducted in-depth analysis to benchmark price and margin of dyes and paints offered y vendors and distributors in the market, and other considerations to recommend L1 & L2 vendors for the client.

Impact / Outcome

Client understood pricing and margins of dyes and paints in the market, and was able to shortlist L1 & L2 vendors

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Mapping vendor onboarding process and parameterizing the vendor selection process for a dye manufacturer

Objective

A mid-sized dye manufacturer wanted to streamline its vendor onboarding process and wanted to parameterize vendor selection for key raw materials.

Methodology

Conducted in-depth interviews with company stakeholders in the purchase and manufacturing functions (N = 10) to understand current vendor onboarding process and key requirements
Conducted in-depth discussions with current vendor base (N = 45) to understand feedback on the current onboarding process, challenges, and key improvement areas
Conducted interviews with key competitors (N = 7) to understand benchmark onboarding processes and understand best practices

Impact / Outcome

Client reformulated the vendor onboarding process reducing number of touchpoints for the vendor and complexity of the overall process

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Market potential assessment for an industrial explosives manufacturer

Objective

An Indian based industrial explosives manufacturer wanted to expand internationally and conduct a deep dive study in terms of primary and secondary research for assessing the market in terms of fragmentation, regulations for launching in the country, taxation policies, etc.

Methodology

Detailed study was conducted on the shortlisted countries through secondary and primary research with the industry experts of the country.
Minute details in terms of sourcing, payment terms, pain points of different relevant stakeholders and others were presented in detail which could impact the decision of the investments.
Primary discussions with key players in shortlisted countries were undertaken to understand on ground realities (N = 15)

Impact / Outcome

Helped the client to identify a market of USD ~3B for industrial explosives after incorporating the inputs from the market along with the existing pain points which helped them to understand their value addition for the market.

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Understand customer journey for a polymer manufacturing firm, specifying key pain points and improvement areas

Objective

A mid-sized polymer manufacturing firm wanted to understand the decision-making process for polymer vendor selection, and their key pain points with a view to improving customer experience and retention.

Methodology

Conducted in-depth interviews (N = 40) with procurement managers of end-use clients of polymer manufacturing firms to understand key considerations going into making a decision regarding polymer vendor, key vendor selection criteria, purchase and usage experience, and pain points.
Conducted in-depth interviews (N = 15) with procurement managers of end-use clients of competitor polymer manufacturing firms to understand key considerations going into making decisions regarding polymer vendors, key vendor selection criteria, purchase and usage experience, and pain points.
Conducted in-depth analysis to understand key pain points of customers, and how the client can offer a value proposition to solve the pain points while providing a superior customer experience.
Conducted quantitative survey (N = 50) with small and mid-sized clients of competitor firms every quarter to understand relative NPS, strengths, and improvement areas

Impact / Outcome

The client understood the customer journey including the decision-making process in detail and was able to tweak the value proposition to provide a superior customer experience.

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