INDUSTRIAL

CHEMICALS Inc
Group 10
Aman Jain 024006
Parichita Raghav 024033
Pulkit Dhanava 024036
Ronit Guha Roy 024042
Case Brief
 Industrial Chemicals Inc. sells highly differentiated, patented white pigment WP-88
 WP-88 dominates the market, being superior to it’s predecessors as well as competitors
 Despite capturing 88% market share, the sales are expected to flatten within the next 3 years as per the
projections by the marketing team
 Linda, VP of marketing, suggests to hire field engineers so as to offer in-depth technical service. She
thinks that multiple uses of WP-88 are possible, if only the customers were able to understand the
product better
 She also thinks that this will enable them to gain valuable insight about their customers, regarding their
genuine review of the product as well as what other needs they have. She wishes to have a stronger
bond, as if they were partners with customers and not just suppliers
 Hugh and Terry both strongly advocate against Linda’s ideas
 Hugh, VP of R&D department strongly disagrees and instead proposes to hire more R&D personnel. He
wishes to focus more on new discoveries and plans on having more breakthroughs, just like WP-88
 Terry, on the other hand, suggested Linda that it would be more feasible to hire more sales force. He
would rather they give technical training to the sales force than hire field engineers
 Key Issues
 Heavy investment for hiring field engineers
 Reporting structure for field engineers
 Resource crunch in R&D
 Issues regarding intellectual property rights
 Complicated combination requests might come
up incase of customization
 Hamper product development
 Price pressure from customers
 Heavy investment might prune profits
Recommendations
 Hire field engineers as per geographical area, or
just for key accounts
 Make sales force and field engineers to work
together to close accounts
 Strengthen the position of the account manager