Why Participate?

1.	Designed for the Industry by the Industry is what makes this study far different than anything else that’s available in the chemical industry today. The design is based on the input and guidance of the eleven companies that form the Steering Committee. This ensures coverage of issues critical to the industry. The end result is specific insights into not just metrics but also processes, technology and organizational practices in global chemicals supply chain management.
2.	A large number of participants in a study helps substantiate the results and individual findings. Over 260 chemical businesses participated in the 2005 study. The aim is to expand the participation to almost 500 for the 2007 study - making this study the largest and most detailed in the industry.
3.	The study avoids broad industry comparisons by focusing on business unit level comparisons and analysis and by grouping businesses with similar supply chain operations we assure more meaningful results. For example, a specialty chemical business will only be compared to other specialty chemical businesses and will not be grouped or compared with commodity businesses.
4.	Detailed and “Actionable” was something we heard from the Steering Committee. As it should be, the study is detailed and comprehensive without being overly taxing on resources. This ensures that the results are “actionable” and that they can equally validate current plans and projects as reveal new improvement opportunities.
5.	Benchmarking metrics with context allows a complete analysis of operational processes and performance metrics. Without contextual insights, metrics have very little value. Therefore, metric related questions are surrounded by organizational structure, processes and technology questions to provide participants with a full picture on how something is being accomplished.