DOW Chemicals' Customer Centric Business Strategy

Abstract

This case discusses the customer-centric e-business strategy of Dow Chemicals (Dow), the leading chemicals and allied products company in the world. It examines the way in which Dow focused on providing better customer service by proactively using IT/Internet enabled technologies. The case describes the various IT initiatives of Dow including MyAccount@Dow, Elemica and DowNET to improve customer satisfaction. The benefits Dow derived from these IT initiatives are also highlighted.

“Our focus is making sure we’re a sustainable growth company. The best way you can do that is to be very productive, very customer-focused and create an organization that delivers new ideas. We’re taking the company strategy and aligning our IT investments with it.”

- David Kepler, CIO & VP, e-Business, Dow Chemicals.

“At Dow we recognized early on that the Internet had the potential to become the primary communication channel between the company and many of our customers, shareholders and suppliers. Our approach was to go beyond using information technology just to simplify the 'buy-sell' process and look at global integration of information technology into all our processes.”

- Dennis Lauzon, President & CEO, Dow Chemicals (Canada).

US-based Dow Chemicals (Dow) is a leading ‘science & technology’ company that produces chemical, plastic and agricultural products. The company is the world leader in the production of plastics, chemicals, hydrocarbons, herbicides and pesticides.

Dow was recognized as one of the most customer-centric companies in the chemical industry, and one that used IT and internet enabled technologies to serve its customers.  The company received several awards for its proactive application of IT/internet for providing better customer service (Refer Exhibit I for the awards won by Dow). In 2000, Dow was third among the Fortune 100 companies and was the only chemical company to be listed in the ‘Global Top 10’ in providing electronic customer service.

For this, the company received the ‘Swift-E Award for Excellence in Electronic Customer Service’ from California-based Brightware, a leading vendor of CRM software. In 2001, InternetWeek placed Dow among the ‘top 100 e-business companies’ in the US for effective use of internet in enhancing customer and supplier relationships.

The US President honored Dow with the ‘National Medal of Technology’ in 2002 for its innovative technological initiatives and its impact on the chemical industry and society. All these awards and recognitions bear testimony to Dow’s customer-centric culture.

Emphasizing the importance Dow attached to customers, Mack Murrell (Murrell), Global Director, Dow’s Corporate Customer Interface Initiative, said, “We believe that if we center all of our thinking – organizational, cultural, procedural, and technological – around the customer, we will create the kind of breakthrough thinking we need to achieve our vision of being the easiest company in the world to do business with.”

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        Case Code   ITSY033
   Case Length    15 Pages
              Period    2002 - 2004
 Organization     Dow Chemicals
        Pub Date     2004
Teaching Note    Not Available
     Countries    USA
      Industry    Science & Technology

Issues

• Understand the importance of a customer-focused e-business strategy for the growth of any organization.

• Recognize the role of IT in integrating different business processes and technologies to make them more customer-oriented.

Customer-centric, e-business, strategy, Dow Chemicals, Dow, chemicals, allied products, Dow, customer service, proactively, IT, Internet enabled technologies, MyAccount@Dow, Elemica, DowNET, customer satisfaction.

Please note:

This case study was compiled from published sources, and is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion. It is not intended to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation. Nor is it a primary information source.