化学工业的再造势在必行

Authors Sachin KumarChaudhary Dr. Bernd Elser Serge Lhoste Global Lead – Chemicals andNatural Resources Thought Senior Managing Director –Global Chemicals and Natural Managing Director – GlobalChemicals Strategy Lead There is no longer the predictability thatonce allowed chemical companies to bemanaged through annual planning cycles, The speed, magnitude and frequency of change, crises anddisruptions have increased materially in recent years. Geopoliticalconflict, logistics disruptions, regulatory intervention, shifting taxregimes and extreme weather events are no longer episodic shocks; At the same time, the chemical industry faces a set of industry-specific structural challenges that compound these externalpressures. Demand growth in key end markets such as automotiveand construction has stalled or slowed. Overbuilt value chains have The prevailing response has been to repeatedly pursue cost-reductionprograms. Across the industry, companies have applied the samefamiliar measures: headcount reductions, asset rationalization, The outcomes from such efforts have become increasingly insufficient. •First, price pressure has outpaced cost reduction, keeping profitability •Second, organizations show clear signs of fatigue, having been askedto execute similar programs repeatedly with diminishing returns. •Third, when identical measures are applied across the industry,differentiation erodes and investor enthusiasm does not return. It is increasingly clear that the management responses that supportedthe last generation of growth will not carry the next one. A fundamentally AI-based reinventionis a game changer Reinvention is more than change. It is a practical operating shiftthat allows companies to reconnect with powerful innovations If there is one industry that understands reinvention, it isthe chemical industry. Over decades, it has adapted technologies,processes and business models to serve changing customerneeds. What is different today is the size of the option space. AI is the critical enabling technologyof this next reinvention wave. Big Tech is investing $400 billion a year in AI and AI-relatedinfrastructure and the race is on. There is an exponential learningcurve with AI: the organizations that move first tend to stay ahead Within the chemical industry, AI adoption has begun—butunevenly, at different speeds and at a materially lower intensitythan in many customer and adjacent industries. In practice, this The highest-value AI use cases are not generic. They are specificto each company’s asset base, data footprint, operating modeland customer set. Capturing them requires deliberate choices: The reinvented When AI-enabled reinvention is applied at scale, the impact is notincremental. A reinvented chemical company can operate at levels A reinvented company will be able to: Develop innovationsby tapping intodecades of Replicate its bestproduction days reliablyevery day, by optimizingplant performance Identify customerdemand andvalue-creation These examples illustrate why reinvention is about reigniting growthand innovation, as well as achieving cost efficiency. What does a reinventedcompany look like? A reinvented chemical company demonstrates clear and A new speed Greater differentiation Value chains are refocused oninnovating, producing and selling,while non-core complexity is Innovation cycles accelerate,enabling more customized A higher degree A new performance Fewer processes, lower manualeffort and materially reduced 60–80% EBIT uplift, driven bymaterially lower costs combinedwith faster growth enabled by This performance frontier emerges not from isolated pilots,but from end-to-end reinvention (Figure 2). A reinvented chemical company's value chain shifts away froma mix of core and non-core activities toward a sharper focus onthe chemical industry’s core strengths—innovating, producing,selling. Asset and people intensive non-core activities that absorb Reinvention also shifts the business model—from selling standardmolecules to solving customer problems through tailored, higher-value solutions. The chemical industry has always excelled at How work and In a reinvented chemical company, work itself is fundamentally different. In production In innovation In selling the shift is fromsmall lab teams withone Ph.D. and twoto three technicianssupported by limited operations movefrom being primarilyexperience drivento continuously intuition-led humanapproaches areaugmented with AI-generated insights These shifts reshape the workforce. Humans and AI increasingly worktogether, with AI augmenting—not replacing—critical human judgment. We modeled chemical companies across the full operatingscope, including 250 Level-4 processes, more than 90 core Our research suggests: A meaningful step changein productivity, addressinga gap that has remained Relief from demographicpressure, as AI helpsoffset the impact of As work is reinvented, organizational structures fol