Managing Change

Quaker Chemical's Mission: Delivering Everywhere the Best from Anywhere

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Industry Focus

Chemical specialty company serving primarily the steel and automotive industries

Size

$460 million in annual revenues

Networking Solution

Global IP network facilitates collaboration between world-wide locations

Business Value

Enhanced ability to sell solutions that help customers reduce costs, improve performance and achieve a safe work environment

About Our Customer

Quaker Chemical Corporation (NYSE:KWR) is a leading global provider of process chemicals, chemical specialties, services and technical expertise to a wide range of industries — including steel, automotive, mining, aerospace, tube and pipe, coatings and construction materials. The Company’s products, technical solutions and chemical management services enhance its customers’ processes, improve product quality and lower costs. Quaker’s headquarters is located near Philadelphia in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.

Situation

The highly competitive specialty chemical industry is subject to swings in the price of raw materials. Rather than just supply products and compete on price, Quaker Chemical aims to strengthen its competitive advantage by selling solutions that provide greater value to its customers and helping them improve their performance. In order to better meet customer needs, the corporation has made the strategic decision to operate as a single, globally integrated entity but execute its strategy under the direction of regional management.

Solution

Quaker Chemical is organized “to deliver everywhere the best from anywhere.” To support its business process improvements and facilitate global collaboration and knowledge sharing, the company employs a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) program, powered by a global IP-enabled network. The solution takes advantage of Quaker Chemical’s global knowledge and resources, better enabling the company to provide outstanding service, technology and product resources to its customers — wherever they are located.

An Unrelenting Concentration on Meeting Customer Needs

Quaker Chemical has experienced a great deal of success in the global chemical market, thanks in large measure to its commitment to delivering value to its customers. Sean Cummings, Quaker Chemical Manager of Systems support and Telecommunications, said the company has increased its investment in knowledge sharing, working toward seamless use of knowledge across all geographic and technological boundaries.

The company’s focus on selling solutions, not just products, has helped it deal with the volatility of raw materials costs. Instead of competing strictly on price, Quaker Chemical has established a distinct competitive position by adding value to every customer interaction. “The real asset we provide our customers is the process and application knowledge gained through our worldwide experience, which we can bring to bear anywhere in the world,” said Cummings.

Quaker Chemical provides a combination of chemical products, services and technical expertise that helps customers reduce costs, improve performance and achieve a safe work environment. One example of how Quaker delivers value is its Chemical Management Services program, a long-term contractual relationship that manages all chemicals and related services for a customer, including Quaker and non-Quaker products. “That brings us two benefits: a deeper, more intimate understanding of customer needs, and detailed data on process costs that makes the value we provide visible,” Cummings added.

Sharing a Global Wealth of Knowledge

“Our business units serving the steel, fluid power and metalworking industry are rapidly eliminating barriers to collaboration,” Cummings said. The global reach of Quaker Chemical’s network facilitates interactions among associates to support top service for customers. “We need to use our business intelligence system to communicate and collaborate across our global operations and share each region’s wealth of knowledge,” Cummings said. Solutions that have worked for one customer can be modified and applied to others, regardless of their location.

Sharing technical knowledge with customers also makes joint product development possible. For instance, one such collaboration resulted in a process improvement that saves hundreds of thousands of dollars, prevents steel rolling product defects and extends the life of the manufacturing equipment.

Like many leading corporations, Quaker Chemical has expanded its operations in China, which has required an enhancement of its Asian infrastructure. Its new IP network gives the company’s China locations a managed solution that minimizes the need to build and provide ongoing operational support for its regional and global networks.

“It also gives us a competitive advantage with our customers who have global operations, especially in China,” Cummings said. “Our mission is to be ‘a single world-wide company that delivers everywhere the best from anywhere.’ We believe that our global reach and knowledge sharing allows us to do it better than anyone in the industry.”

Working the Worldwide Connections

Quaker’s network enables all associates to log on from any location and access all the applications they need to do their work. “The world clock turns 24 hours, so all our associates basically have their office wherever they happen to be when they need to collaborate,” Cummings said.

Thanks to its network infrastructure, he added, “We travel less and collaborate more.” The company portal has grown tremendously as employees share documents, exchange messages and work together on initiatives. Quaker chose AT&T Network-based IP VPN Remote Access service to cost effectively, efficiently and securely connect workers with corporate resources when they are traveling both here and abroad or working remotely. “It’s the best service we have with AT&T,” Cummings said. “It’s there, it’s reliable, it’s a godsend.”

Quaker also uses AT&T Secure E-Mail Gateway, a network-based e-mail security and message management solution. Filtering spam and blocking viruses frees a tremendous amount of bandwidth on the network, he said, which decreases latency and makes collaboration even easier.

Global email and application access facilitates timely decision-making for company executives as well. “With the global ERP, senior management always has the information they need at their fingertips,” Cummings said. Associates can also access new resources such as Q‑University, an online application designed to help develop professional skills.

A Secure Platform for the Future

With ever greater dependency on world-wide collaboration, business continuity is a key concern. “In today’s business environment it’s critical to have all your systems and networks always available to support your customers,” Cummings said. “The value of an MPLS-based network is that it provides seamless connectivity to all our locations across the globe and single accountability for our local-to-global data communications,” Cummings said.

Its fully managed, single network makes things easier for Quaker Chemical’s small IT staff. “We don’t have to worry about doing configurations or administering the network,” he said. “If I have an infrastructure need, it’s nice to know that AT&T has the knowledge and expertise to keep the network running.”

Quaker Chemical’s innovative use of technology has not gone unnoticed, as the company was presented with CIO Insight magazine’s 2005 Business-Technology Alignment Award. Editor Ellen Pearlman applauded Quaker for its success in using IT to dramatically change its business.

Working with AT&T, Quaker Chemical will continue to expand its global operations. “For the past 18 years that I have been with Quaker, AT&T has been our partner in the U.S. Now they have become our global partner, helping us to create the needed infrastructure worldwide to connect our operations via the AT&T Enhanced VPN Services. They have helped us with our IT strategy to deploy Web-enabled applications from a single data center in the Netherlands that allow our associates to collaborate and perform their functions,” Cummings said. “We have a single network that is a platform for growth.”

Voice of the Customer

“The real asset we provide our customers is the process and application knowledge gained through our worldwide experience, which we can bring to bear anywhere in the world.”

– Sean Cummings, Quaker Chemical Corporation
Manager of Computer Operations & Support Services