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Chemicals

With chemicals industry software from SAP, you can create innovative new products, increase agility, and drive greener growth.
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The future of the chemicals industry

To capitalize on growing demand, chemicals companies are modernizing planning, development, and production – and finding new ways to differentiate.

Image representing top of mind topics for chemicals including chemicals supply chain challenges, market and price volatility, focus on customer centricity, green chemistry and sustainability, and digital transformation in the chemicals industry
Chemical supply chain challenges

Extreme weather, geopolitics, and changing regulations are impacting chemical supply chains. Companies are using new tools to better anticipate disruption, simulate contingency plans, and mitigate risk. 

Market and price volatility

Rising costs of energy and raw materials – combined with resource scarcity, demand fluctuations, and supply chain disruption – are creating high market and price volatility in the chemicals industry. 

Focus on customer centricity

Chemicals customers have shifted from buying products to buying outcomes. For example, instead of a pesticide, they seek the promise of an abundant crop. Leaders are working as an ecosystem to deliver.

Green chemistry and sustainability

Chemicals producers play a key role in mitigating climate change, and investors are taking note. Commitments to net-zero emissions, the circular economy, and other sustainability goals are center stage.

Digital transformation in the chemicals industry

Chemical manufacturers are under pressure to adopt advanced technology like AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) to co-innovate, better anticipate demand, and drive safety, efficiency, and agility.

Featured chemicals solutions

SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Transform and compete in the experience economy. SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers a framework to adopt best practices for the chemicals industry, enabling innovation and operational excellence within and beyond company boundaries.

SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain

Support real-time supply chain planning with capabilities for sales and operations; demand, response, and supply planning; and inventory optimization. The solution also offers analytics, what-if simulations, and alerts.

SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises

Measure, manage, and optimize your sustainability goals holistically. You can integrate data and processes to manage your carbon footprint, reduce material waste, and achieve social sustainability with a single license.

See how customers are succeeding with chemicals solutions from SAP

Explore how we can help your chemicals business run better

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Making strategic decisions based on sustainability-related data helps you reduce your environmental footprint. You can establish a unified approach to sustainability risk assessment and manage operational risk and compliance by using standardized, workflow-enabled processes to record incidents and trigger investigations.
  • Environmental impact monitoring
  • Circular value chain management
  • Asset utilization optimization
  • Waste reduction
  • Compliance management

SAP Environment, Health, and Safety Management provides us with the safety reporting capabilities necessary for success in oil and gas. The application has helped us gain insight into approximately 14,672 incidents, including historic data, and take advantage of valuable lessons learned.

Shang Weizhong, Corporate HSSE Director, PetroKazakhstan

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Enabling digital twins and IoT connectivity of assets allows you to continuously monitor asset health, process quality, through-put, workers safety, waste, and emissions. By combining asset information with predictive analytics, you can predict the likelihood of asset failures, plan maintenance, and adjust production plans accordingly.
  • Synchronized processes to optimize asset performance
  • Support for data-driven decision-making
  • Proactive risk and safety management

40% decrease in the duration of unplanned downtime and outages.

Source: SAP Performance Benchmarking

Our goal is not just to make our production facilities safe for workers. The two are closely related – the workforce safety and it cannot be separate goals. With SAP Service and Asset Manager we´ve taken a step toward realizing both. We will continue with SAP S/4HANA.

Christoph Pressen, Head of Mechanical Engineering, Treibacher Industrie AG

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Getting deep market insights enables proactive development of innovative products that exceed customer expectations. You can increase your margins by offering value-added services to improve customer loyalty and satisfaction.
  • Collection of customer feedback and insights
  • Cost- and requirement-targeted R&D of innovative products
  • Product compliance management

25% increase in customer satisfaction levels.

Source: SAP Performance Benchmarking

 

We made a selection and we came out with SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP Cloud for Customer (functionality now found in the SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud solutions) as the best solutions for our company. We want to use forecasting and all the possibilities that SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers us to be more reactive to the market. SAP S/4HANA Cloud will allow us to react much quicker to changes than before.

Dirk Storms, Business Information Manager, INNOTEC

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Achieving real-time data visibility through interdependent SAP Digital Supply Chain solutions helps transform supply chain planning and execution. You can establish automated and standardized planning processes, collaborate through business networks, and react faster to ever-changing downstream demand and supply disruptions to remain resilient.

  • Customer-centric and profitable product development
  • Integrated and synchronized planning and execution
  • Connected truck, rail, marine, pipeline, and yard management
  • Advanced what-if analysis with scenario planning tools
  • Collaboration with trading partners across the network

>10% increase in new product revenue from accelerated innovation with an extended ecosystem.

Source: SAP Performance Benchmarking

Before, so much time was spent on converting purchasing forecasts into business effects that they became outdated by the time they arrived at sales. Now, we can immediately report on changes and thus have a closer connection between sales and procurement.

Robert Vultier, Project Business Owner, Procurement, Clariant International Ltd

Get started with SAP's cloud solutions for chemicals

SAP can help you start or enhance your chemicals digital transformation – no matter where you are in your journey. If you have yet to move to cloud ERP, you can get started with the RISE with SAP solution. If you already have cloud ERP – from SAP or any other vendor – you can enhance your chemicals capabilities with our industry cloud solutions.

RISE with SAP

RISE with SAP provides customers with complete business transformation as a service (BTaaS) in a single package. At its core is SAP S/4HANA Cloud, business process intelligence, technology credits, and more. RISE with SAP also includes:

  • Cloud ERP for your chemicals business needs
  • Industry next practices and extensibility
  • Analytics and business process transformation
  • Outcome-driven services from SAP and our partners

Industry cloud solutions for chemicals

Built by SAP and our partners on an open platform, SAP’s industry cloud solutions address specific industry needs for the chemicals sector. Designed to work with your existing SAP and third-party systems, these specialized cloud applications can help you drive cost-effective transformation and sustainable growth.

  • Cloud-based chemicals solutions 
  • Innovative technology from SAP and our partners
  • Straightforward integration with existing systems
  • Extension of your current investments

Featured cloud solutions for chemicals

Sodales for Enterprise Health, Safety, and Employee Relations

Use a single portal for managing health, safety, and employee relations processes for occupational and nonoccupational incidents, disability claims, grievance management, disciplines, seniority, job bidding, and more.

Carbon Footprint Data for Chemicals and Plastics

Get environmental impact data for more than 1,000 chemicals and plastics. You can upload data from Microsoft Excel to SAP Product Footprint Management for comprehensive, accurate carbon footprints and environmental assessments.

SAP Paybacks and Chargebacks by Vistex

Administer, model, report, and analyze contracts and chargeback agreements while preventing errors and unwanted profit leakage.

Explore your chemicals resource center

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