DKSH: Increasing revenue and engaging customers in a specialized market by digitalizing sales
Striking the right balance to satisfy customers
DKSH wanted to reinvent the way in which it interacts with customers. The SAP Commerce Cloud solution offers the usability and scalability that the specialty chemicals company needs, helping it better understand customers, offer them a great experience, and radically transform sales.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Cross-industry – Chemicals and life sciences | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | >1,650 employees |
unique visitors to the platform expected in the current year.
users with a customer account.
markets with content customized.
Associate Director, Digital Transformation, DKSH Performance Materials
Crafting a global sales platform that caters for local needs
DKSH Performance Materials (DKSH) enriches people’s lives in many ways with its specialty chemicals and ingredients for food and beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, and industrial applications. Through 53 state-of-the-art innovation centers, DKSH develops cutting-edge products and solutions to meet the ever-growing needs of customers.
Founded in Switzerland in 1865, the company also has deep roots in Asia. DKSH Corporate Shared Services Center – its global hub for digital and IT services, business process operations, and other group functions – is based in Malaysia.
The chemicals and healthcare industries are traditionally highly dependent on sales personnel and paper-based processes, and DKSH was no different, with 95% of sales opportunities coming from trade shows and face-to-face meetings. DKSH wanted to digitalize sales operations by building a unified platform for the global business and creating an online catalog for use across 35 countries.
Instead of building numerous small catalogs for different markets, DKSH set out to “think global, act local.” The aim was to share all chemicals and ingredients, all suppliers, and all documentation across countries and adopt a strict data and product-information-management (PIM) model.
Also key was integrating this platform tightly with the group’s customer relationship management (CRM) and ERP systems.
Integrating data and software to build a scalable solution
DKSH decided to implement SAP Commerce Cloud as the basis for its new digitalized sales approach. It knew SAP Commerce Cloud would support a scalable and flexible solution with AI capabilities and high data security and availability while also offering multilanguage storefront customization features. It would facilitate PIM and SKU codes by mapping global products on SAP Commerce Cloud with local SKUs on the ERP system to offer customers in different countries customized pricing, packaging, and sizes.
DKSH also set out to integrate SAP Commerce Cloud with SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business Technology Platform, and the group’s third-party CRM system. Connecting this software would aid an API-first approach and open up integration possibilities with third-party systems.
In building its new platform, DKSH adopted an agile product development approach, working on road maps that incorporate customer and internal stakeholder feedback. Preintegrated software components reduced the need for customization and enabled a speedy project, helping the company set up an initial online presence for multiple brands in just eight weeks.
Enhancing the customer experience on a user-friendly platform
The DKSH Discover platform, which serves customers from Asia Pacific and North America to Europe, now receives one million page views a year and provides offerings from more than 1,000 suppliers. It lists 23,000 ingredients and specialty chemicals.
DKSH Discover’s performance is very impressive for a specialized platform marketing specialty chemicals and ingredients. Visitor numbers are growing by around 100% a year, and 25% of DKSH’s new business opportunities now come from its digital ecosystem. Indeed, DKSH saw digital business grow by 176% in 2022, indicating strong adoption from both a customer and sales-team perspective.
DKSH can now run promotional campaigns across e-mail, LinkedIn, and other channels that highlight the right ingredients for the right customer at the right time, opening up previously untapped sales leads. With order status information from DKSH Discover connected with other stages in the supply chain through the ERP system, the company can track orders more efficiently. And the platform also enables more-sustainable practices, supporting documentation and certification processes that help ensure it delivers the option for sustainable specialty chemicals and ingredients for customers as required.
Customers, for their part, now enjoy a vastly improved experience as indicated by the company’s increased net promoter score rating. They now have 24x7 access to real-time data, from pricing and promotions to stock and order status, from the device of their choice. By highlighting the differences between one product and another, the platform helps customers more easily compare products, which is very helpful for specialists developing a new project. Registered customers can find their documents, view different samples and quotations they have requested, and reorder materials from a single location. Customers also appreciate the ability to rapidly request a call with a technical specialist who understands their needs and can connect them with the relevant innovation center.
To help ensure that they meet customers’ needs, sales teams ask customers for live feedback on the platform, and customers can also share feedback about a specific feature or page through the site itself. DKSH engages customers further by sharing demos and sending information on new features twice a year.
Tapping into intelligent technology and new digital opportunities
DKSH now intends to fully embrace the possibilities offered by its new sales foundation. For example, a dedicated team is currently digitalizing over 20,000 additional specialty chemicals and ingredients to make them available on DKSH Discover. It’s also using ChatGPT to generate a prompt each time it needs to digitalize a product description. This automation helps DKSH generate new content that has been robustly validated before appearing on the platform.
Digital projects are now expected to account for 40% of overall corporate projects at DKSH Performance Materials by 2026, up from only 1% in 2019. It’s clear DKSH is forging a distinct competitive edge thanks to its DKSH Discover platform based on SAP Commerce Cloud.