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Chemical industry gung-ho on e-biz

Archana Chaudhary

MUMBAI, April 22

IN times when `click and mortar' has replaced `brick and mortar' could the Indian chemical industry be far behind. The increasing number of chemical portals being launched clearly indicates that the chemical industry is gung-ho about e-biz.

Says Mr. Pradeep Malu from Worldchemnet.com: ``We plan to facilitate chemical trade not just in India, but the entire world, through our site.'' There are others. Be it indian-chemicals.com, chemicalindiaonline.com or chemB.com, every site claims to ``pr ovide a platform'' to the chemical traders for selling their ware to buyers in India and abroad.

But unlike international sites like echemicals.com, which provide transportation and payment mechanisms, most of these sites seem to be ``posting and classifieds'' sites.

While indian-chemicals.com, which is linked to an international site, displays information about Indian chemical companies, it does not provide e-commerce and interactive trading, though it soon may. Chemicalsindia.com provides only global trade inquirie s.

Chemindustry.com, an Indian site with an international link, provides a host of services such as lists of organisations to news, lab services, R&D, engineering and environmental information.

A senior official of a major chemicals manufacturing company said: ``Most of the sites have no idea how logistics will be managed. Who will transport the goods across the country? Or how payments will be made. Abroad, yes it works. But in India, it is st ill a wait-and-watch situation.''

There are sites like chemB.com which have tied up with Transport Corporation of India and HDFC for transportation and payments, but these are relatively few in number.

Despite these problems the response to online chemicals trading seems positive. ``We are receiving postings worth $ 30-40 millions a week,'' says Mr. Malu. The site has set a target for reaching $ 6 billions in the next two years. International research firms like Forrester have estimated the B2B market to go up to $ 1-1.3 trillions by 2003.

``What we need is a B2B model where the traders can do more than post orders. There is need for a credible ground support system to be in place,'' says Mr. Ramesh Patodia, CEO, chemB.com.

``The Indian chemical industry is extremely fragmented with maximum concentration in western India,'' says Mr. R.R. Gokhale, Secretary of the Indian Chemicals Manufacturers' Association which is coming up with `e-chem.com'. He feels that the Net will pro vide competition to the traditional transaction model.

The Net may cut the supply chains of chemical manufacturers considerably. It may even speed up the process of hunting for a good deal for chemical traders looking for buying speciality chemicals from the other end of India. But the fact that most Indian manufacturers have no Net access seems a small hurdle.

Says Mr Patodia: ``It is only a matter of time. And 65 per cent of the chemical manufactures is in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, three of the most technology-savvy States.''