Brenntag Specialties in Europe
"Our employees are the key to our success"
Since June 2008, Dr. Christian Ohm has been Marketing Director of Brenntag Specialties in Europe. He talks to together about how he sees his new role and what he deems to be important for ensuring the long-term success of Brenntag in the specialties market.
Photo: Brenntag
What are your impressions of Brenntag after your first few months? I was very impressed by the sheer variety of Brenntag’s international specialties business and, needless to say, by the people who are so committed to the success of the company. In addition to this, I see Brenntag as a very dynamic business that has the potential for significant future growth. In short: my first impressions and experiences have been extremely stimulating and positive. And how do you rate the company’s prospects in the specialties business? I think that we are already well positioned on the international market. We have noted that our suppliers and customers are gearing their activities more and more towards the European or even the global market. Above all, I see significant potential in helping to drive forward the development of their business, by ensuring that Brenntag is a flexible and highly competent partner. Is this also how Brenntag is seen on the market? Not quite, in my view. In Europe, Brenntag is seen above all as a major player in the distribution of industrial chemicals. The fact that Brenntag is now also the European number one in specialty chemicals is not yet known throughout the market. However, we are working hard to rectify this. Can you give a few examples of how you are going about this? By ensuring that Brenntag is seen as a partner that genuinely adds value to the supply chain, and by actively increasing the awareness of our range of products and services. Suppliers and customers essentially expect the same things from us: They want access to the market knowledge and expertise of our technical specialists and expect us to enhance their credibility and competitive edge by offering a range of innovative products and services, backed-up by a world-class logistics network. For Brenntag, being competitive means providing not just the right price, but the right overall service package. I have every confidence that this approach will enable us to extend our leading position within the European specialty chemicals market even further in the future. I am also very enthusiastic about our new image brochures for Personal Care, Food, Pharma and ACES. We will be using the core messages and motifs of these brochures for our international trade fair activities, which in turn will help hone the profile of our company. Is “distributor” still an accurate description of what Brenntag does? Not really. I see the term "distributor" as being too narrow a description of the wide range of services we provide in the specialties business. In actual fact, we are a very important link in the value chain, involved in all stages from new product development, through logistics, consulting and active support, all the way to final processing. Does the creation of the new Marketing Director position signify a major structural change within the company? No, I would be more inclined to say that it signifies a new departure and an increased focus on further developing this growth business. As I mentioned earlier, Brenntag also aims to continue enhancing its profile – both internally and externally – as a European company in the field of specialty chemicals. In this way, we can lay the foundations for achieving our goal: to outpace market growth in Europe. In this regard, the creation of the new position of Marketing Director of European Specialties is a clear indication of where the company wishes to go. You mentioned honing the company’s profile on the European specialties market. Is the organizational structure suitable for this? In my opinion, the structure has proved its worth but still has much potential to develop further. In the specialties area, the national organizations can turn to "European" colleagues – EBDMs (European Business Development Managers) and EMMs (European Marketing Managers) – for support in the increasing pan-European nature of their business. The EBDMs or EMMs of the eight specialty segments – Food, Pharma, ACES, Personal Care, Feed, Polymers, Cleaning and Water Treatment – preside over the European panels for the segment in question. Represented in the panels themselves are the specialists from within the individual countries who are responsible for the segment. In other words, we bring together all of our international expertise in order to develop strategies that will drive our European business forward and deliver our key objectives. However, everyday work has shown that there are overlaps that need to be managed efficiently. My goal is to make greater use of the transfer of knowledge at a European level, above and beyond the individual segments. A prime example of how successful this can be is the cooperation between the Food and Pharma areas in Nutraceuticals. In addition to the existing committees featuring national managers from each country, the EBDMs/EMMs will be coming together on a monthly basis, as of September 2008. The objective of these meetings is to share new developments and opportunities and, following this, to discuss together with colleagues and employees new ways in which our goals can be successfully implemented. I firmly believe that we are in an excellent position with this “individual country/European” organizational set-up. And motivated employees are an absolute must. Quite right. For me, our employees are the key to our success; they are the company’s most important asset. I see that more and more responsibility is being transferred to employees and that their workload is increasing. Communication is playing an ever more important role. I believe that providing ongoing training and keeping employee know-how up-to-date is the only way to meet the high requirements that exist in this business. After all, their motivation is the key for the quality of our services and, at the end of the day, the satisfaction of our business partners. Another key success factor in my view is mutual trust. In other words, agreements must be honored and the "door should always be open". I deal with problems as soon as they arise and try to solve them by means of personal interaction. This is how I wish for my performance to be judged. How do you find the people at Brenntag? To answer this question, I would need to get to know more people in the company and find out exactly what they do. For this reason, but also to gain a better understanding of how things work in each individual country and region, I am currently visiting all European countries. This is a very exciting and interesting process. I have rarely seen so many colleagues and employees all fired up to "do business". The goal of not only keeping the standard high, but working together to make it even higher, is something that I have sensed everywhere. IN PROFILE: DR. CHRISTIAN OHM Dr. Christian Ohm was born in Leverkusen-Opladen, Germany, in 1955. In 1981, he graduated from the University of Bonn with a degree in chemistry, followed by a doctorate in organic chemistry three years later. Dr. Ohm began his career at Bayer in Leverkusen in 1984, where he headed the Polymer Development laboratory in the Rubber division. In 1991, he moved to Bayer subsidiary Polysar Rubber Corporation in Sarnia (Canada), where he was department head in the area of Research & Development. In 1994, Dr. Ohm returned to Leverkusen to assume a managerial position in the area of Rubber Marketing. In 1996, he took responsibility for the regional coordination of North America/Mexico for Bayer AG. Having been appointed head of Marketing & Sales for "Inorganic Basic Chemicals" in 2000, he took over as manager of the entire IBC area the following year. Since June 2008, he has been Marketing Director of European Specialties at Brenntag.
Christian Ohm is married and has three children. Contact: Dr. Christian Ohm christian.ohm@brenntag.de
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