Digitally Powered Customer Centricity

The Air Liquide - Airgas Merger

Himanshu (18PT2-26) | Ishpreet (18PT2-27) | Jitish (18PT2-28) | Lalit (18PT2-30) |
Piyush (18PT2-34) | Prashant (18PT2-35) | Jitish (18PT2-36)
 Air Liquide Company

• Air Liquide operates in 80 countries and counts approximately

67,000 employees serving over 3.7 million customers and
patients
• Grouped into Industrial Merchant, Large Industries, Healthcare
& Electronics business lines
• Customer centricity at core – serving in highly customer-intimate
business
• Early adopter of customer centricity, foray into B2C home care
• Innovation in 3 dimensions: energy transition, healthcare and
digital transformation and based on science, technologies,
customer experience and the incubation of new activities
• 4 strategic pillars - Operational excellence, Selective
Investments, Open Innovation & Network organization
2
Customer Centricity
From touchpoints to journeys: Seeing the world as customers do
 Digital Transformation (DX)

• Enabling firm’s people & processes, by effective use of digital

technologies to meet changing business and market requirements
• Works around people, processes and technology
• Dictated and driven by customer and journey touchpoints
• Tech is the engine, data is the fuel, processes are navigations & org
change capability is the landing gear
• Tech/Data are the pivot and focus on increasing entire stakeholder
network efficiencies
• DX should be de-risked from keeping tech as linchpin and
people/processes as cogs
• A good DX program can be multiyear engagement, encompassing
internal & external boundaries
• Involves entire value chain a firm is operating in
4
 Digital Transformation (DX) and Customer Centricity

• DX must be centered around customers to enhance CX, leading to

longer & more successful relationships
• Create loyalty via habit is the key across journey and beyond
• One of best KPI is reduced loyalty loop, starting from digital stimuli
and post satisfaction in engagement
• CX must be seen as enabler during customer buying journey &
beyond
• CRM is the invisible Cupid, realizing personalized touch and offer
compelling options within ecosystem
• Seamless experience regardless of channel or touchpoint
• Higher value creation for firm, both as SCA & higher financial
returns
• Ultimately aimed to create a relation of higher CLV, CSV & CKV
5
 Why have Air Liquide and Airgas been successful while being so
different?

• Focus on acquire, retain and grow

• Customer centricity & Digital technologies
• Aim to be most customer centric in respective spheres
• Early foray into omnichannel model (ALBEE & airgas.com)
• Thinking outside the box approach
• Strength of a giant, agility of a startup
• First mover advantage in online commerce model
• Building customer relationship & loyalty via habit
• DMU (decision making units) alignment
• Decentralization & FLE latitude enablement
• Talent management and grooming
• Process oriented culture

6
 How would you characterize Air Liquide’s and
Airgas’s customer- centric philosophy?

1 Diversified international business (Industrial Markets – Traditional B2B/KAM Model

(Market Leader) + Proximity Markets – “B2SmallB” go-to-market model (Still Learning &
Evolving).

 Large Industries (Operational Excellence /Customer Competitiveness - Constructing gas

generation plants directly at the customer sites)
 Industrial Merchant (Customer Experience/Proximity - Creating supply sources for the
Industrial Merchant business line around gas plants set up by the Large Industries)
 Home Healthcare initiative: Well-defined targets (the patient as the user, the doctor as CUSTOMER
prescriber)/ Sense of Urgency to customer needs, emotions and day-to-day CENTRICITY
expectations/ Sense of Empathy within the customer-facing teams A KEY ENABLER

Evolving Network Organization with base, hubs and clusters still Bureaucratic to higher
2
extent + Highly Process Driven

3 Fully-fledged CRM + Voice of the Customer (Medallia, which allowed it to visualize

quantitative metrics - NPS to measure customer loyalty using systematic customer feedback
survey system) + Integrating Digital Analytics/AI to reinforce customer centric DNA.
 1 A Strong Culture of Customer Proximity and Service – 1:1 Customer Interaction - “B2SmallB”
go-to-market model (Market Leader) - ‘With 900 local branches, each with 2 or 3 salespeople
and sales of $7-10 million, Airgas was able to interact directly with customers’.

Acquiring and aggregating Local Distributors

2

Lean & Informal Organization with Entrepreneurial Spirit/Decentralized Decision-Making + Less

3 Process Driven

CUSTOMER
CENTRICITY 4 Most Advanced and Unique Multi - Channel Distribution Network/Omnichannel Model enabled
A KEY ENABLER via Digital Innovation
 Digital Partners - Acquity -> ‘Airgas Interactive’ team
 www.mygas.com : Not only SME customers but half of their Key Account buying online.
 ERP (SAP)Integration : Unified Customer View
 ‘Total Access' team, a professional tele-salesforce - 400 Call Centre’s Reps - 70% Outbound
(Growth) + 30% Inbound (Customer Service) +
 Order by Phone, Online, via EDI + Multiple delivery models: Truck delivery/ UPS delivery /
Pick-up

No fully-fledged CRM nor systematic customer feedback survey system / No Customer KPIs
5
formal tracking - “We know we are customer-centric so we do not need to measure it.”.
 What Types Of Relationships Have Respective Digital Approaches Of
Airgas And Air Liquide Led To?
• Planned investments, thoughtful actions to move customers
higher on loyalty ladder, thus easy to manage
• Partners/True Friends/MVC - Long term and high
profitability
• Using digital stimuli to create enhanced CX, finally higher
satisfaction
• Continuous relationships for all volume, margins & strategic
customers
• Solving crisis of immediacy in real-time, both online &
offline
• Automation to reduce efforts & adding value using
ecommerce

9
 Now that Airgas is part of the Air Liquide group, how best to blend their
respective approaches? 

CROSS-POLLINATING CUSTOMER-CENTRIC INITIATIVES B/W AIR LIQUIDE AND AIRGAS

Two highly complementary businesses to deliver greater value

01 02 03
Identify Classic Segmentation Unpacking Customer-Centricity by Selecting a Digital Transformation
(eg: Product Segment or Industry, Customer Relationship type Strategy or Technology
(such as relationship frequency or depth) - Fling, to match the above segregated segment
Customer type, etc.) and relationship type.
transactional, best friends, enemies, etc.

Test and learn from trying different technologies and communication channels to strengthen each type of relationship.
Test & Air Liquide, for example, in 2014 launched ALBEE, a pilot e-commerce site selling gas cylinders and called it myGAS in 2017. By
Learn the following year, myGAS accounted for a remarkable double-digit percentage of Air Liquide’s sales to SMEs in the nine
European countries where the site was active.
 ‘Differentiating the post-merger clientele, analyzing and understanding its relationship with each customer segment,
& adopting digital technologies that can transform those relationships thereby creating customer value’

Industrial Markets - Traditional B2B/KAM Proximity Markets - “B2SmallB” go-to-

Model market Model

Focus on upstream Focus on downstream

Most Advanced and Unique Omnichannel

Model
www.mygas.com
Evolving Network Organization with
ERP (SAP)Integration : Unified Customer
base, hubs and clusters + Process Centric
View
Approach on upstream
 ‘Total Access' team, a professional tele-
salesforce.
 Order by Phone, Online, via EDI + Multiple
Air Liquide’s Voice of the Customer
Programme, for instance, incorporates Delivery Models: Truck delivery/ UPS
NPS and is able to measure customer delivery / Pick-up
loyalty using systematic customer
feedback survey system + Digital ‘Airgas Interactive’ team to create a
Analytics/AI to reinforce customer Digital Strategy for the merger.
centric DNA
‘Managers were visibly obsessed by the
customer and were incentivized based
Customer Centric KPIs tracking on the EBITDA growth they delivered
year-on-year against a pre-set target
Thank You