WACKER SILICONES Intensifies Focus on Asia as Market of the Future

16-Jul-2013 - Singapore

WACKER silicones, the main sales driver of the Munich-based WACKER Group, is continuing to expand its operational and sales structures in Asia. To advance its silicones business in Asia, the division has strengthened its regional presence and established additional teams to support local Asian markets. It has also set up new cross-sector functions with global responsibilities for product and business development. These global functions will spur knowledge transfer and promote expertise in the division’s regions.

Since March, five new business teams have been active in Asia, geared to providing customer support locally from WACKER sites in Singapore, Mumbai (India), Jincheon (South Korea) and Shanghai (China). The new teams are the next logical step in the division’s regionalization strategy, launched in 2009. Each of these teams utilizes not only local sales structures, but also region-specific technical centers, where products are adapted to local raw materials and customer specifications. WACKER SILICONES supplies products to a wide variety of key Asian industries, ranging from personal care, textiles and paper to plastics processing.

As part of its realignment process, the division has also reorganized responsibilities for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South America (EMEA/LATAM) and for North and Central America (NCA). “Customers outside of our European home market often have different product demands,” explains Dr. Christian Hartel, president of WACKER SILICONES. “With our organizational changes and our additional regional teams, we are now able to support Asia’s high-growth markets more effectively, without neglecting our traditional markets in Europe and North America.”

The regional teams are supported by globally active business and product development teams, whose tasks include coordinating cross-regional marketing strategies and product portfolios. The global teams, at the same time, spur knowledge transfer and expertise growth in the division’s regions. “Emerging Asian economies are expanding very strongly,” stresses Hartel. “Our regionalization strategy gives us the tools to satisfy growth even more successfully and systematically in these highly promising markets.” The realignment process involves developing a dense network of experts in the region. “Our key competitive advantages in Asia include not only product quality, but also technical support.”

WACKER SILICONES is also aligning its research and development activities more closely with customer needs. “In the future, we intend to sharpen our focus on our core technological competencies in industries ranging from electronics and automotive engineering to health and energy,” emphasizes Hartel. The division expects new products to account for an increasing share of sales in the coming years. “Our customers want to know exactly how we will be supporting them in the next three to five years,” the division’s president continues. “We’ve defined our research priorities accordingly and realigned our innovation portfolio. With a strong focus on market- and customer-driven product development and by presenting new solutions to our customers, our regional business teams will continue to differentiate themselves in their markets.”

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/news/144017/wacker-silicones-intensifies-focus-on-asia-as-market-of-the-future.html