The brief ‘big picture’ of chemical industry
The chemical industry is well-positioned to leverage significant advantages from emerging technologies, such as IIoT and cloud computing. The industry is valued at around USD 3 trillion globally and is identified as one of the prominent sectors for having contributed to every nation’s economic growth. Owing to its size, complexity and increased cost pressures, it has become important to externalize non-core activities. Outsourcing may dilute associated costs and facilitate better bandwidth for core activities. We are at an inflection point where digitization is fueling businesses to thrive. Large-scale digitization may be less understood within the chemical industry, but cloud computing is no less important.
Factors driving cloud computing in the chemical industry
The biggest challenge that the chemical industry is facing is timely access to information which is invaluable for business decisions. The industry is complex due to rising customer expectations and increasing competition. Stringent compliance requirements are also turning into a barrier to business agility.
A breakthrough approach of leveraging cloud computing is imperative to tackle radical challenges and open up new possibilities. Monitoring assets in remote locations, round-the-clock surveillance, and remote access to operational data are some of the key factors that have led the chemical industry to rethink about the adoption of cloud technology. Following are some of the aspects driving the application of cloud computing in the chemical industry:
- Integration of cloud facilitates access to almost real-time data and reduces response time for prompt decision making in complicated global supply chains.
- Cloud infrastructure is easily scalable and does not involve huge capital investment as its foundation is a ‘pay-as-you-use’ concept.
- Increased commoditization of products offered in the chemical industry is driving the need for differentiation through product innovation.
- Increased consumption of chemical products in emerging markets has made it imperative to penetrate them quickly and effectively.
- Cloud-connected drones for asset surveillance can control accidents across manufacturing facilities by issuing early failure warnings.
Adoption of cloud across different functions of chemical companies
The chemical sector is asset intensive, and monitoring asset health can be a key to return on asset investments. Therefore, to counter the challenges in maintaining asset health, adoption of cloud computing is becoming crucial. However, achievement of a measurable impact on the effectiveness, demands optimization of implementation processes.
Clear strategy and robust platforms are key factors that chemical industry players must consider to adopt cloud computing for impressive results. Cloud services can be implemented across different stack levels involving SaaS, IaaS, PaaS and BPaaS.
SaaS
According to a report by Accenture, SaaS is the most widely used cloud service model, with more than 92% of employees using SaaS across multiple functions of the chemical industry. It is an entry point for using cloud services across chemical companies.
Higher penetration of cloud deployment has been observed across non-critical functions, which include human resource management and marketing. On the other side of the equation, adoption of cloud computing is less in functions such as business operations, product development, and supply chain.
