According to one of the largest producers of pyrogenic silica, the new teams are the next logical step in the division’s regionalization strategy, launched in 2009. They have been established in an effort to utilize not only local sales structures, but also region-specific technical centres, where products are adapted to local raw materials and customer specifications.
The teams have been active in Asia since March, aimed at providing customer support locally from Wacker sites in Singapore, India, South Korea and China.
On the venture, company president Christian Hartel says each group uses both local sales structures and region-specific technical centres where products are created based on local raw materials and personal care customer specifications. "Customers outside of our European home market often have different product demands."
As part of its realignment process, the division has also reorganized responsibilities for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South America and North and Central America.
"With our organisational changes and our additional regional teams, we are now able to support Asia's high growth markets more effectively, without neglecting our traditional markets in Europe and North America."
Strengthening its position
Hartel goes on to explain that the re-alignment process also involves developing a dense network of experts in the region and Wacker's key competitive advantages in Asia include not only product quality, but also technical support.
“Emerging Asian economies are expanding very strongly. Our regionalization strategy gives us the tools to satisfy growth even more successfully and systematically in these highly promising markets.”
Just last October Wacker teamed up with DKSH to distribute its biotech products used for personal care applications in Asia taking advantage of the Zurich-headquartered firm’s presence in the region.
"The partnership with DKSH will significantly strengthen Wacker's position in Southeast Asia, a region in which we see growing demand, particularly for our biotech products and solutions," said Heiko Zipp, director of the Nutrition business team and life-sciences division, at the time.