Dow Chemical Company's Plastics business is one of the world's leading suppliers of raw materials for injection-moulded products.  

"In a challenging market environment we have made substantial progress in this sector. I am confident the ideas Will has introduced will ultimately play a major role in helping us achieve our long-term goals."             Davida Johnson, Commercial Director

During a business strategy review Dow recognised the opportunity of exploiting its range of engineering compounds in markets in which it had not created a major supply position in the past.

These markets, including the telecoms, IT and electronics industries, had been perceived as a difficult sell by the customer-facing organisation. In these industries plastics were not seen as a strategic purchase, the buying decision could be influenced by a range of stakeholders (design, engineering, production, purchasing) and in some cases were governed by regulatory constraints. Moreover, Dow did not have high market profile in these industries, and could not build upon a historical track record.

Dow chose the Miller Heiman Strategic Selling process to manage the complex sale, and targeted a number of high-profile European accounts. A number of commercial measures were established for the twelve-month initiative, and Academy consultants were selected to implement the process.

Many of the participants were immediately enthusiastic: "The Bluesheet will become a major tool in my account strategy" said one senior seller; another predicted: "During my interactions with customers, I will be more able to 'categorize' the customers based on their role in the buying process. With this I can tailor the discussion to suit their role." As to the introduction of the process "It was done so well, I wouldn't know how to improve it." 

During the year, three further reinforcement exercises took place to focus more closely upon topics such as determining win-results, gaining business knowledge of the customer, and defining targeted value-propositions. 

By the end of the year, every one of the targeted performance measures had been achieved: planned revenues across each product category and for each target account had been achieved; visibility of Dow in the sector (measured by the number of unsolicited enquiries) had achieved its first-year objective; and the 80% "comfort level" of sellers with the Bluesheet process was exceeded.