Pam: When we talk about digitization I don't think that people really
understand is it a tactic for me?
Is it a strategy for me?
And at the end of the day, one of the biggest is really being able
for a chemical company to associate a KPI to their digitization strategy
. It sounds elementary, but we have to start there.
And most people start with wanting to check the box of a digital strategy.
But if we start with the end in mind of the problem that we're
trying to solve and get the KPI.
Then that digitization strategy is going to get legs.
A key component of the modern world economy, the chemical
industry delivers products and innovations to enhance everyday life.
It is also an industry in transformation where chemical executives and
workers are delivering growth in industry changing advancements while
responding to pressures from investors, regulators and public opinion.
Discover how leading companies are approaching these challenges
here on The Chemical Show.
Join Victoria Meyer, president of Progressio Global and
host of The Chemical Show.
As she speaks with executives across the industry and learns how they are leading
their companies to grow, transform, and push industry boundaries on all frontiers.
Here's your host, Victoria Meyer.
Victoria: Hi, this is Victoria Meyer.
Welcome back to The Chemical Show where Chemicals means Business.
Today, I am speaking with Pam Walker, who is the Director and
General Manager of Data Intelligence, and Insights at UL Solutions.
Pam is an experienced business leader with over 20 years in the chemical industry.
She's led digital transformation at leading companies, including Univar and
Brentag before she joined UL Solutions.
Pam and I have some parallel experiences in our careers, which we may explore
really about bringing customers, commercial and digital together.
And Pam was one of our panelists at the 2023 The Chemical Summit.
So she got an opportunity to talk a little bit about digital then, and we are going
to be diving deeper into that today.
So Pam, welcome to The Chemical Show.
Pam: Thank you and thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to talk with you today.
Victoria: I'm really happy to have you here.
Pam, what's your origin story?
How did you even get interested in chemicals?
And really you were an early adopter of digital solutions.
So how did that come about?
Pam: Yeah, it's you trip into the chemicals, right?
Sometimes, but, I was talking to you about at the Summit,
which, by the way, was awesome.
I cannot wait for next year.
It was thoroughly, thoroughly worth the time, so thank you.
I started my journey and believe it or not, 1994 and chemical distribution
and like we were talking about at the Summit, it was about 1999 when I went
to a startup in 1999 was like the first chemical digital boom, if you will,
Victoria: Yes.
Pam: right?
Do you remember?
Victoria: I started working on digital in chemicals in 2000.
. It's hard to believe that's over 20 years ago and it feels
like not a lot has changed.
Pam: Here's what's funny.
No, it's not because in 99, you had all these companies pop up and I went
to work for what was an e-commerce company , and obviously that was too
early for that and it went belly up with the hundreds of other companies.
, promising digitization of the chemical industry.
But the funny thing is I then went back into chemical distribution and implemented
digital solutions for the chemical distributor I worked for at the time.
And the funny thing was going to each of these plants and telling
people, Hey, I don't want you to go in your paper filing cabinet.
I want you to go to your computer to do that.
It was like, it was right.
So then I fast forward in 2005.
I went to another startup focused on material selection and discovery
and then UL Solutions bought them.
So boom, here I am.
Victoria: Okay.
That's awesome.
And it's really cool that you've been able to blend big companies and startups as
well, because that's a unique experience.
Pam: Yes.
Yeah.
It's definitely unique and different.
And, the really challenge and opportunity is bringing the startup
vibe into the big company, which, which thankfully at UL solutions we have.
Victoria: Great.
So tell us a little bit about UL solutions, because I think people might
be familiar at least with part of the company, but not all of the company.
I know you've got quite a legacy.
Pam: Yes, it is quite large.
Most people know us from the little circle UL on your appliances
in your kitchen and everywhere.
And while, that's still true, but the definition of safety
involves since our inception.
130 years ago and, you have solutions to global leader and applied safety science
and working for the safer world is the mission and we do it through testing
inspection certification services.
But that's now coupled with software and advisory offerings and supporting
the customers innovation, helping them launch new products and services
sustainably, and responsibly.
And those are the really the key things when you navigate these global
markets and complex supply chains.
Victoria: Yeah.
How does that connect to chemicals?
Because again, I think of UL, as you say, as the little stamp on the back of
electronics, your toaster, other items.
Where does the chemical connection come in?
Pam: As chemicals are in everything.
We're a walking chemical in our bodies.
You would the way that safety has evolved is when you have all the regulations
and retailer requirements and everything and how we get our products to market
and the more that society itself cares about what we're ingesting and how we're
throwing away, our global footprint of safety, sustainability and responsibility
really encompasses the chemical industry.
Very nicely, very complimentary with the appliances and the way you had
thought about UL solutions before.
Victoria: Makes sense.
You're right.
Chemicals are all around us.
Most people don't know.
Most people working in the chemical industry realize it, but there's still a
a journey of discovery that we're all on.
So speaking about the journey of discovery, we're in the decade
of digitization and AI, right?
With tremendous growth and investment, you cannot turn on the
news, look at your phones, turn on your computer without hearing
something about digitization and AI.
And yet we really still have a very long way to go, particularly when we think
about chemicals and materials companies.
So what's the biggest unmet need that you see currently
in this space of digitization?
Pam: Wow.
That's.
That's a big question, and when I think about it myself, I'm going to
chunk it out into three really big things when we talk about digitization
I don't think that people really understand is it a tactic for me?
Is it a strategy for me?
And at the end of the day, one of the three biggest is really being able
for a chemical company to associate a KPI to their digitization strategy
. Because I know it's shocking
Victoria: wouldn't think about that, but okay.
Pam: it sounds elementary, but we have to start there.
And most people start with wanting to check the box of a digital strategy.
But if we start with the end in mind of the problem that we're
trying to solve and get the KPI.
Then that digitization strategy is going to get legs.
But the second thing that we're facing is the unmet need for the right kind of data.
We talked to both.
All sides, right?
We talked to the product manufacturers the suppliers of raw materials,
the distributors, no matter who you talk to the need for sustainability
and certification data has been absent from many digital solutions.
And you got to have this to, develop products faster to avoid reformulation
and those things affect your bottom line, which take me up to my first
thing is you need a KPI right?
So that is all goes and then, the third unmet need is really
being able to take the formulation and certification and regulatory
info and really put it into your
workflow.
And there's a whole lot of data points and like, where we sit with UL solutions,
we see it all because we have data that's like the prospector search engine for
material data, then the regulatory data, then the certification data the carbon
footprint data, corporate level, ESG data.
We have a ton of robust information and all these things married together.
Really helps to meet the unmet needs for companies to develop
those safety, safe or sustainable products and associate that ROI.
So it's an interesting, I don't want to say interesting, but it's
a different perspective on it.
And it sounds so elementary, but, when we're running so fast in the chemical
industry to chase a shiny coin, if we just hang on a minute and really say
what problem we're trying to solve, it's amazing how much things can get done.
Victoria: And so I think that ties into this whole aspect of what's really
holding companies and leaders back from embracing digital from making those
investments, because certainly when I talk to companies, a lot of them
are not making digital investments.
Certainly the biggest ones are, or they're making components of investments, but a
lot of leaders are having a really hard time embracing digital for their business.
So we've all embraced it in our personal lives.
Maybe there's a few holdouts but most of us embrace it in our personal
lives, but what's really holding companies back from going digital?
Pam: I think that sometimes it's a deer in headlight syndrome, is that what is
going to be the best bet for my company?
Am I going to get true or lie?
Do I need to do this for table stakes?
Do I need to do it for marketing?
And so really identifying and I'll go back to what I said before.
How does this help me achieve my revenue goals?
How does it tie into my strategy?
And how does it tie into better servicing my It's in the end that's
all that matters is, the customer experience, which is going to lead to
everything else being taken care of.
So I think once companies start there and then understand how the digital
tactics, if you will, can help to make their strategy a reality, then
they could deliberately move and identify the best bet for them.
Victoria: Makes sense.
Do you have data on this?
I guess my question is, we think about KPI, I think really about
ROI, the return on investment in improving customer experience.
Do you guys have any data points or have you seen anything out in the,
maybe public press, public reports around what the benefits of the
companies that are, embracing and taking digital to the next step, how
they're outpacing their competitors or the results that they're achieving.
Do you see anything around that?
Pam: Just off the cuff, I have, what I would call proof points and how we've
helped customers do it and I will say at a high level, if you think
about someone developing a product.
And when you develop a product, I always say this, I'm amazed
anything gets on our shelf.
You've got to understand the composition.
You've got to understand if you can sell it and X, Y, Z market.
You've got to understand if you can put it on the shelf at your major retailer.
If I'm going and I'm doing material discovery, who am I going to select?
Am I going to select the person or the company that I can extract
that information from easily?
Or am I going to select the one that I have to takes me
more time to get all that?
So it becomes a differentiation for sure.
And that differentiation can be associated to to a KPI.
Absolutely.
When we talk about what our customers need, and I'll get specific is that.
When you can relate it to a KPI and not a checkbox, most companies want to do what?
Get products to market faster.
That is a huge KPI.
And so some customers have their own data.
I got my data, right?
Because I loaded it in their filing cabinet 25 years ago.
I know they got data.
But they have to marry that with.
Data we have a UL Solutions to really streamline that process.
And and I'll just be anecdotal here, but it's actually not anecdotal.
It's I'm not going to give the company's name a specialty materials company.
They had a manual process, and so they collected all these different
kinds of data, product data, certification data, sustainability data.
Manually, manually aggregated it.
Now, this is true story.
They manually uploaded it to their system.
Hours and hours spent on this.
And then data integrity by the time they did all this was questionable.
So what we did is we leveraged like Prospector Data, Product IQ data, or
regulatory data from Chem Advisor, all this, and we got an API and now we
magically put it into their workflows
for product research and development.
This manual work saved the company $100,000 dollars, you know, in a
year for just the main work for us..
So, Time savings, you can calculate and those are examples.
Hardcore both from an external, you're going to be selected more favorably and an
internal, you're going to get to product the market faster and reduce manual work.
Victoria: Yeah, and I think that work efficiency becomes really critical.
And a lot of this as well as, one of the things you touched on
earlier was around sustainability and the sustainability data.
And, I've had so many conversations in the past week about a sustainability
reporting that companies are going through and the sustainability data that's needed
as companies start to reformulate or just, reformulate sounds like
a big word, but just to evaluate their formulations and figuring out,
hey, what are their alternatives?
Having the data that can be in the same format, easily understood and frankly,
compared pretty quickly is critical.
Pam: And it's getting more and more important with the increased focus on
it, the increased, carbon footprint initiatives that are are out.
Victoria: So we definitely see some business cases and certainly return on
investment when we think about digital.
There's a lot of options and it's certainly an investment.
I think one of the big things and one of maybe the big challenges is
the change business processes and behaviors that are required because
we could put the best system in place.
We all know this.
It's been done over and over and over again, probably in the chemical industry,
whether it be, starting with Lotus Notes and then well, Lotus Notes doesn't work
and we're moving on to something else.
And maybe it didn't work, but also maybe it's just that the people
weren't using it very effectively.
So you can put any system you want in place, but if, if the people.
And, whether it be employees, customers, other business partners aren't
embracing and changing their ways of working um, utilizing these digital
processes then the investment feels like you're not getting that return.
So how do you guys typically address that when you see and talk to people, how would
you respond to that concern about the required, just human behavior changes?
Pam: Change management is real, right?
And the human behaviors are both internal and from your
suppliers and your customers.
And the 1st thing where we start is.
This is a lot of investment in dollars and an effort sometime to resources
to implement digital strategies.
So you 1st need to make sure you pick the right partner.
And there's so many as we said before, it's like 1999 all over again.
There's a lot of startups popping up and.
And new technology promising all these solutions.
And so the 1st thing that companies want to look at is
to work with a trusted partner.
And that is 1st and foremost, how does that align to human behaviors?
Well, a partner is going to have longevity and be with you along that journey
and and know that they're going to be there 10 years from now, and not maybe.
A flash in the pan, if you will.
And when you look at human behaviors, to me, the most impactful thing is getting
a solution that fits your business.
And your business problem and not fitting that business into a solution.
You don't want to go buy something and say, okay, we have it and we're going
to shove it in there and hope it works because people are going to be going,
oh my goodness, this is horrible, right?
This is worse than I, I had before I'm going back to zoom
or whatever, you had with that.
So as long as it fits in with your business, then we find
the human behaviors opening up.
My job is so much easier.
I can do so much more.
I can make decisions faster and smarter.
And so that really leads to adoption.
And then that trusted partner along the way to ensure that they have your back.
But one thing is.
When you invest digitization, it is an inherent risk, right?
But the risk of not doing it is bigger.
And one of my favorite sayings is "Dig the well before you're thirsty."
Because don't want to play and you want to be playing catch up in this at all.
Victoria: Yeah.
So that's great.
So let's talk maybe a little bit about risk, which I know is our
an off the books question here.
What are the risks that people should be considering when you think about
digital implementations of any variety?
What risks come into play?
Pam: I would say that first of all, as I said before, the risk
of whatever solution not being supported over a long period of time.
That's something that you have to consider for real.
I think it's the risk of adoption and we talked about that, how to mitigate
that a bit to make sure that it is solving a, a human problem that is
going to help people do their business or do their job better or help your
customers in doing business with you.
And I think that the risk is in also the kind of information
that you're bringing in.
The risk is getting the right data.
And making that data, turning it into action for you is truly important.
Victoria: I think that, your point back to making sure that it's connected
to the users having people involved.
And I think it's so critical.
So I do, a lot of work helping companies implement strategies and their
marketing strategies and other things.
And one of the things I always come back to is strategy is really personal
and it can't be done in isolation.
A digital
transformation decision can't be done only by the IT team,
only by the executive team.
You actually have to get into the organization.
The people that are using it to understand their problems, to build advocates for
like, "Hey, this is the right answer because it's going to solve problems.
A, B, and C."
And I think it's just really critical that people start diving in and embracing more
of the organizations in these decisions.
Pam: I really like that.
It's starting when I always say, Hey, let's start with a
problem you're trying to solve.
You're really starting with a human.
. You're starting at the people level and, of course, digitization is a
board level initiative with no doubt.
But, the board that C-suite and all the way down really wants to ensure
that the customers are taken care of and the revenue is not behind it.
Victoria: So we started out talking a little bit about digital strategies and
the factors that companies needed to consider in their digital strategy.
A recent study by Deloitte, I just saw this from them recently said that
investments in digital were down in 2023.
And yet we know that frankly, 2024 and beyond, we need to be investing.
There is no doubt that.
across the industry, we need a solid digital platform or
set of platforms and tools.
But back to this idea of strategy from in your experience, what percentage
of chemical companies actually do have a digital strategy that's
tied to ROI and tied to KPIs and that they're able to execute upon.
Pam: Some companies are undertaking quite robust data harmonization projects, right?
And building cross functional use that we work with today.
And this is definitely a digital strategy.
However, some businesses are now building the business case
of, hey, we have all this data.
What are we going to do with it?
So they're not out there and others clear strategy of just single business use case.
And we see this in our chemical performance and certification
management products.
So I just want to get my data out there.
I want single place to put my product data and I want it across all digital
real estates and that's all I want to do.
So that's digital strategy.
So a lot of companies, I think the majority are exploring it, maybe smaller
percent are in execution mode and it.
Is I think that same article though Victoria, I think it said.
If I'm thinking about the same line, it said 94 percent of executives
said that AI will be critical in the next 5 years and really around R&D
and gaining insights and tracking.
And one of the interesting things that they inferred, or they may be said
absolute in that article is that the challenge is the quality of the data,
because if quality of the data is bad, then it just breaks the whole thing.
And that's where we, the trusted partner is imperative because
you don't have data quality
you're up a creek.
Victoria: It goes back to the original garbage in garbage out, right?
If you're, you've got to have clean, good, solid data to use.
And then back to your point, I think I've heard a lot of these stories,
but certainly came up when we were at The Chemical Summit together that.
The amount of data that's in maybe unusable formats is the wrong way to
say, but there it's sitting in lab books.
So there's all kinds of data sitting in lab books, sitting in somebody's
computer in a file that's not easily accessible and usable, et cetera.
And so there is a huge, frankly, a huge opportunity to figure
out how to digitize that data.
And also a gap, right?
And I think about how powerful we will be when we can actually
harness all the data we've got.
That.
Oh yeah.
There were insights that we had 10 years ago.
We just didn't know they were there because they, because somebody was
holding onto them just because there was no way to share it effectively.
Pam: In bringing products to market, this data is crucial, right?
And when we do our chemical data management projects in
our sustainability dashboard.
We have to go into companies and get that aggregated and then the light.
Start going off.
Oh, my goodness.
I didn't realize and sometimes folks didn't realize that their company in
another location was doing X, Y, and Z.
So you really get a light bulb on it.
But one thing that when you talk, it triggered a thought for
me is that if you had to ask me
the number one roadblock
Pam: to digitization, it may be Excel.
And it's funny because Excel,
Victoria: Why?
I love Excel by the way, but
Pam: listen, I have a spreadsheet.
I have a spreadsheet for everything, but Excel is still saved on, even
if it's in SharePoint, you can't extract a decision from that data.
And my data is digital.
It's an Excel.
Excel is not going to.
Have a direct feed for regulatory information or requirements or
any of the important things.
It's not going to tell you your ESG profile.
You have to take that data from Excel and good news.
It's already in your computer and you have to integrate it into software stuff.
Victoria: You say that and it brings up to me I, I use Microsoft, I
use Google and Microsoft wants me to save everything in One drive.
And if I do, I can't freaking find it.
Like I'm searching everywhere.
And then I have to open word backup or Excel backup again, like where exactly.
Did you save this?
Because I can't find it.
And yeah, I guess that's the good news is that bigger companies usually
have better protocols around this.
When you're an entrepreneur with a small business, you're fending for yourself.
Although the reality is many chemical companies really have just,
a handful of employees, less than 20, less than a hundred employees.
And they don't necessarily have the standardization of business
practices to harmonize that data.
Pam: Yes, and it will still that means it's sometimes simpler.
Candidly, right?
It's less moving parts.
It's less human behavior and it's a very clear cut what
they're going to get out of it.
So I think that.
If you had to look at maybe how to start.
Or which platform to pick or what factors.
If you had to look at that
through the lens, it's not a one size fits all because you do have different size
of companies that have different needs.
And so what is your company situation, your objectives and your strategies?
So that's what needs to be considered.
When our customers choose UL Solutions,
they choose you well, mainly from the vendor with a proven track record, right?
We've been around 130 years, pretty long time, chances of us going to 131 are huge.
So I yeah, I joke, but we're, a trusted vendor and the ability to collect
and aggregate and analyze across from employee to ESG to product to supplier
is hugely important for our customers.
And, access to those evolving regulations and sustainability and matching that
with a raw material to actually design a product, hugely important, but it may not
be important to all, but important most and really to differentiate your company
based on your digitization strategy.
That's important, but you have to look at what your company is trying to achieve
and then match, what you do from there.
Victoria: Makes sense.
Pam, this has been really good and I know we could keep talking for a very
long time about all things digital.
We're still here at the beginning of 2024.
When you look ahead to the year, what are you looking forward to?
What should we be looking forward to?
Maybe in the land of UL Solutions or in the land of digital and chemicals,
which what's on the horizon.
Pam: What's on the horizon is I think full speed ahead.
And what I mean by that is that there are all kinds of technologies
popping up in the market and whether you are doubling down on AI, and
I use it in quotes, because people use AI for pretty much any sentence.
And whether you're using that, or you're using data aggregation or
funneling it into your workflows.
I think 2024 is going to be extremely exciting from an adoption standpoint.
And extremely exciting for us to really come together in a way of the industry
to offer transparency needed in the market today to bring these compliant
and sustainable products to the world.
And it's really crucial in the 1st step.
In doing that, and what I'm most excited about is working with companies to
really take the problem that they're trying to solve and strategically
tying it to that KPI and business case, and then marrying it with a solution.
That's right for them.
Victoria: Love it.
Love it.
So full steam ahead and we'll see how the year progresses.
Pam, Thank you so much for joining us today on The Chemical Show.
Pam: Thank you, really enjoy it.
Victoria: I've enjoyed it as well and thanks everyone for listening.
Keep listening, keep following, keep sharing, and we'll talk again soon.
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