The future is digital: Improving differentiation and time-to-market

How is digitalization transforming the way we work with our customers? From product formulation to order placement to delivery; we are putting customers at the center of our digital acceleration efforts to help deliver greater value to them and improve their experience in doing business with us.

Let’s take a look at how digitalization is making a difference:

Reducing product development times

To more quickly respond to evolving consumer and customer needs, we continue to implement digital tools to accelerate materials science innovation. One example is in our Polyurethanes business, which is using predictive technologies to design formulations that meet our customers’ needs. The team has worked to build a unified global data platform for artificial intelligence models to power a virtual lab, allowing our product development scientists to instantly visualize, analyze and model thousands of ingredients and properties, significantly reducing development times of new polyurethane formulations. In 2022, the Dow Polyurethanes business was recognized with the 2022 Artificial Intelligence Award for these Predictive Intelligence capabilities.

Enhancing the online buying experience

To enhance the customer experience, we're looking at our digital capabilities for providing product availability and what we're calling digital order control – ensuring we have efficient and streamlined processes so we can commit product to customers when they order. With the product availability feature on Dow.com, customers have improved visibility to availability while our employees reduce order touches. We also are developing an integrated, user-friendly real-time pricing tool and creating personalized account management features to help customers better manage their information. In addition, we are developing a customer feedback strategy to gain insights that will inform future capabilities.

Improving shipping visibility

Dow.com provides real-time information regarding order management, invoicing, technical documents and shipment tracking. When it comes to deliveries, our customers want insights into all shipments, across all carriers, in real-time. For example, a Brazil-based customer used to call Dow customer service at least twice per week to ask about the delivery status of their orders. The representative had to contact Dow logistics, which then reached out to the driver to check the status. Then, they would call the customer back to inform them about the status. By the time the information was tracked down, the truck was often already at the distributor location waiting to deliver. Now, with their Dow.com account, the customer has 24/7 access to delivery status through the shipment visibility tool, so they know exactly when their shipment is arriving – saving time and frustration.

At the end of the day, digitalization is not about the technology, but about finding ways to put the customer at the center of Dow’s processes. That’s why we remain focused on improving the moments that matter for our customers and investing in capabilities to provide a digital experience that is easy, enjoyable and effective.
 

Michelle Bannick, Senior Director, Digital Commerce and Commercial Excellence