Do it, inspire others, take off!

Mauricio Buchdid did not let himself be discouraged, even though suppliers initially showed no interest in his electronic auctions. Laura Kovach and her interdisciplinary team did everything they could to persuade a customer to switch products, and Jack Conen wanted to optimize knowledge transfer at Saltigo. Many of you are committed, contribute your expertise, sometimes fail, but then keep going. It is precisely this attitude that will ultimately help us successfully navigate a crisis.

One commentator wrote about the final of the European Basketball Championship in September: Germany once again slept through the start and fell behind. The Turkish team played like they were unleashed, and the outcome seemed clear. The Germans were also missing key players due to injury. But then the reigning world champions pulled themselves together and fought their way back. Suddenly, players who no one had previously considered stepped up. They scored crucial baskets, and in the end, captain Dennis Schröder decided the game for Germany. What started out so mediocre ended with the title. The combination of individual performances and team spirit had prevailed.

What applies in sports can also be applied to working life: one person can inspire everyone else – in both a negative and a positive way. This is also possible in a company. For example, the colleague who remains motivated despite poor economic data and realizes his project in the best possible way. He suffers setbacks, analyzes them coolly, and carries on. He believes in himself and thus has a motivating effect on others. Is he just lucky? “No,” says consultant Carl Naughton. It's an attitude that can be trained. It doesn't have to be God-given. Confidence and trust are inner attitudes that are also fed by experience. "Unfortunately, we usually remember negative experiences. That's a mistake. It's better to keep in mind everything you've already achieved in life," advises Naughton (more on this on pages 14 and 15).

Making an impact in your own environment
This advice is perhaps particularly important in these times. After all, who isn't feeling downcast by the seemingly endless stream of negative news? But that doesn't help – neither you nor those around you. Individuals cannot change the state of the world, but they can change their own situation. And that can lead to personal successes in the professional environment, which ultimately help the entire company. Such colleagues serve as role models. Because motivation is contagious, too.

Don't complain, take action
Fortunately, we have exactly such colleagues in a wide variety of positions at LANXESS worldwide. They don't complain, they take action. And because this is so important in helping us get through this difficult time for LANXESS, we would like to introduce some of them to you below. They are examples of the many who are not mentioned here.

If you know of a great initiative by a colleague, please write to us. We are happy to share positive examples.

Email: xpress@lanxess.com

The lucky charm
In Japanese culture, the crane symbolizes a healthy, long, and fulfilling life. According to legend, if you fold 1,000 paper cranes, your wish will come true.
Maybe you'll start today and give the lucky charm to a colleague?

Knowledge transfer at Saltigo
Working together to find the best solution

Mauricio Buchdid reports:
For about ten months, I have been trying to establish electronic auctions more and more. At first, I had great difficulty persuading suppliers here in Brazil to participate in my e-auctions. Many work according to a “monthly price list

model” and have never had any experience with electronic auctions. I had to do a lot of persuading and convey the necessary knowledge to them as simply as possible. That was a big challenge. On the other hand, these tools also offer advantages for suppliers: they have many more opportunities to win orders. At the same time, of course, there is also increased pressure to be undercut by other companies and to have to lower their own price expectations.

Different types

We have various types of e-auctions at our disposal, but we use reverse e-auctions most frequently. We set a maximum price and several competitors submit descending bids to win the contract. This is a flexible solution. During the auction, suppliers can view their bids and their position online. Suppliers usually know their ranking, but not the actual bid prices of their competitors. The big advantage of this auction is that we always end up with an offer.

The outcome of the Dutch auction strategy is somewhat more uncertain. We usually use it when there are fewer approved suppliers. In this case, the auction starts with a low price, which is gradually increased. The starting price is based on the supplier's reference price and the average price of the previous year. But such auctions are tricky. I once planned eleven rounds for an auction and took a very aggressive approach. But one supplier dropped out after the tenth round. So there is always the risk that there will be no offer in the end and the deal will fall through. That's why the planning for this auction has to be much more decisive. The pressure to accept the offer is on both sides. If a supplier accepts the current offer, the auction automatically ends with a winner.

Strategy worked
But it can also work out well. When I had to buy a raw material for which there were only three approved suppliers, I decided to use the Dutch auction strategy. In the first step, I requested a reference price (RFI: Request for Information) to define the auction target. We had also planned to reduce the price by 15 percent. So we set our minimum starting price. With each bid, we gradually increased our offer, and the supplier had time to accept or reject it. In the end, we were very satisfied with the result. We were able to reduce the price by 11 percent compared to the reference price and even by 18 percent compared to the average material price in 2024.

Time-consuming preparatory work
However, preparing for this auction was time-consuming. First, we had to explain this different form of e-auction to the three suppliers. We arranged a meeting with each supplier to remind them of the date and time of the auction. It was also important that only employees with decision-making authority on the supplier side participated in the auction. We established auction rules and coordinated with the stakeholders. The suppliers had already been trained in the use of the tool.

E-auctions have led to significant cost savings for us in Latin America. Currently, this method covers about six percent of the total expenditure of the MPP site of the IPEL portfolio. The following points are crucial factors for the success of e-auctions: defining suitable materials, maintaining a qualified supplier base, training, educating bidders, coordinating with stakeholders, establishing clear rules, and ensuring clear communication.

Above all, the exchange of experiences has proven to be extremely valuable for me. I was encouraged to pursue this path. Understanding the process, learning from initial attempts, and adapting the concept to my specific requirements were crucial to my success. It was also important to me that questions about e-auctions, such as choosing the type or using the right tool, were answered directly by the Center of Excellence or the Ambassadors team. This created a truly global community.

E-auctions bring greater transparency, competitiveness, and more dynamic negotiations. Now I want to work even more closely with my sales colleagues to share knowledge and insights. Our goal is to develop a variety of strategies that will open up new business opportunities for the company.

Customer segmentation at PLA
Going the extra mile makes all the difference!

Laura Kovach:
As part of this year's Commercial Excellence Initiative, the Polymer Additives sales organization took another close look at our customers and reclassified them. Our aim was to identify those with strong growth potential more quickly. The newly formed “squads”—cross-functional teams of sales, marketing, and technical staff — are tasked with unlocking this potential.

In addition to myself as Strategic Account Manager, our team also includes Global Product Manager Michael Bearer and Emily Mayes, R&D Lab Manager.

Our dibenzoate coalescing agent K-FLEX@ 500 offers many advantages in coating formulations. Our goal was to expand our business with a leading manufacturer of coatings and paints in three new plants. In June, we succeeded in doing so, securing orders for the three target production sites in the US.

Reliable delivery
How did we achieve this?

By earning an “A+” rating for our current business: our deliveries were on time, our quality was 100 percent, and we provided strong technical support for current business and projects. Our supply chain model, in which products are stocked at terminals for different regions of the country, was a good fit for the selected companies and their plants. That was a big advantage for us.

After receiving the first order, we did everything we could to deliver as promised. Demand planner Timo Breitkopf and customer service representative Anita Lorch helped us with this. Both played a key role. Thanks to them, we were able to ensure smooth implementation.

Close communication
Weekly conference calls between myself, Anita, and the customer's supply chain team kept us informed about ongoing operational requirements. This allowed us to incorporate them into our planning and avoid disruptions. After all, any product change involves high risks, especially during the transition phase, when problems can have serious consequences for production. This can jeopardize the reputation of individual employees of the customer. Through our intensive communication and joint review and analysis of all difficulties in advance, we were able to gain the trust of our company contact and management.

Involving all sides
Crucial to the success of the collaboration was the fact that we were in constant communication with both operational and commercial stakeholders. We offered them practical solutions and often identified problems in advance. Beyond this immediate success, we have received impetus for further joint development projects and are in direct contact with the customer's technical teams. For example, our customer's category manager asks me for direct project updates for these new projects – this confirms his trust in us and that our approach is working.

Knowledge transfer at Saltigo
Working together to find the best solution

Jack Conen reports:
How do others actually do it? We often asked ourselves this question when we faced challenges in developing or optimizing a recipe. Because even though our products and plants are different, we all face similar tasks: designing efficient production processes, precisely defining parameters, and linking plant functions as effectively as possible. So there is a wealth of expertise in the plants at Saltigo – but until now, no way to share it in a structured manner. Solutions are developed multiple times, even though they already exist elsewhere. That costs time, money – and energy. We wanted to change that!

The idea was therefore to set up a knowledge exchange project for automation engineers. Since Saltigo plants work with different process control systems and therefore also with different programming languages, methods, and structures, it quickly became clear that instead of meeting in a conference room, the meetings had to take place on site in order to develop a real understanding of the other area and the terminology used there. So two plants always got together and organized dates for visits and return visits.

More than just spectators
The focus was on very practical questions from our everyday technical work: How is a Nutsche filter operated or a process step carried out? How do you define the end of a filtration process, for example? The guest automation engineer is given access to the local system and thus gains a deep insight into the workflows. Perhaps the other plant has a more efficient way of carrying out a work step and your own plant could benefit from this. The first meetings have shown that This provides valuable impetus for both sides. We have already identified a number of approaches that could offer added value across locations, but which have so far only been used in one plant.

The aim of future longer exchanges will be for the guest to create a recipe for one of the existing products – according to their own logic and methodology. This will then be compared with the original and discussed together.

The project shows that it is not about finding the perfect system. Each plant has its own strengths and challenges. But if we create transparency and share good ideas, we can achieve so much more together.

Process optimization in accounting
Faster service for customers

Carsten Segschneider reports:
A customer calls and wants to buy a product in a different container size than we offer. Actually, it's a simple request. But internally, it means handling a process that involves up to 30 steps in multiple systems and up to 15 people – including sales, marketing, controlling, and quality management. Processing took an average of around 30 days – which naturally led to frustration. This is because as long as the new material master data has not been created in the system, no order confirmation can be sent – and the customer could jump ship.

Our goal was clear: to streamline the workflow and eliminate bottlenecks. The challenge: each business unit is organized differently – some have higher-level data teams that control the entire workflow; others work in a decentralized manner. It is therefore not always easy to find a solution that suits everyone. We therefore entered into an intensive dialogue with our contacts.

After a year of intensive project work with the business units, IT, and the Commercial Excellence team, we now have a leaner, more efficient workflow. We have removed as many steps as possible from the “critical path” so that a larger part of the process can now run in parallel. This means that the overall duration is not necessarily extended if one point takes more time. With a new dashboard, we can also monitor specifically where certain steps are particularly time-consuming. This allows us to address any anomalies in a targeted manner.

Our ideas are having an impact: Currently, the creation of new logistics materials, such as finished products or raw materials, takes an average of only 17 days. And there's more to come: our declared goal is 10 days. But we can only achieve this if everyone pulls together. If we extrapolate the potential time savings to the approximately 5,000 data records we create each year, we can make a significant difference – both internally at LANXESS and in terms of customer satisfaction.

ComEx Academy in the USA
More knowledge leads to more sales

Rob Castaneda reports:
The Commercial Excellence Academy focuses on growth initiatives. And there is still a lot of room for improvement. For various reasons – such as the pandemic, acquisitions and internal obstacles – LANXESS had become too focused on internal matters. Now we had to refocus on our customers. The training brought everyone together: We gathered ideas on how we could improve and work together across BUs. In my more than eight years at LANXESS, this was a first for me, and I really appreciated it.

MPP and PLA have mutual customers in the water treatment, agriculture and plastics sectors. My colleague Michael Bearer, BU PLA, and I had already noticed a year earlier that we had a very large overlap of mutual customers. At that time, we decided to work more closely together. Now we used the Academy to formalize this.

The advantages of such cooperation became apparent with the customer RPM, for example. This customer is important for both MPP and PLA. We knew that he still had growth potential for us. PLA is in closer contact with the contact person in the purchasing department than we are. Thanks to PLA, we now have information that we can use to generate further growth with this customer.

Specifically, we have identified five important CASE accounts in our training courses. Our goal is to coordinate these major accounts in order to discover growth opportunities and potential collaborations. Another important aspect is that customers do not try to play the BUs off against each other. Recently, there have been cases where customers have told us that MPP and PLA have made different statements about pricing structures with regard to customs duties. We want to either avoid such situations or have a good explanation in advance as to why the BUs approach certain issues differently.

Due to the specialization of our individual BUs, each of us must maintain contact with customers. However, we must convey a consistent message across all BUs. In addition, we should always look for further opportunities to offer our customers solutions beyond the current offerings of the individual BUs. We need to find ways to leverage existing relationships between the business units and customers to increase LANXESS's overall sales.

We want to create a culture where collaboration between business units becomes the norm. There are still many opportunities for growth. In fact, MPP and PLA recently had a joint meeting with an agricultural company.