Hydrocarbon Processing - February 2021 - 10

Business Trends
experienced colleagues? Establishing
unique programs (e.g., reverse mentoring) can foster more collaboration and
two-way engagement between senior executives and young professionals.

FIG. 1. Chemical companies can use the four levers of transformation to prepare for the future.

mation that could push companies into
the future: energy transition, integrated
human-machine collaboration, recoded
careers and organizational agility (FIG. 1).
These levers may seem difficult at
the start, as all initiatives to change an
organization or its culture are challenging initially. Once management engages
with a transformation and empowers its
employees to drive and shape the transformation, the pathway to transformation
will likely be widely embraced.
Sustainability. The consequences of

the pandemic seem to have reinforced
the call for long-term decarbonization
and transition to cleaner energy sources.2
The chemical industry and its served
end-markets are evolving along with the
growing emphasis on sustainability, and
new industrial ecosystems (e.g., electric mobility) are emerging. This could
create new opportunities for chemical
companies to develop advanced material
solutions and services to serve unique
needs and capture more added value to
other industries. This could mean more
than $1 T/yr of additional value.3 However, the opportunities arising from a
focus on these new areas present a challenge to the industry in terms of hiring
new employees with the right technical
skill set, as well as imparting these new
colleagues with the organization's institutional knowledge of environment, social
and governance (ESG) issues.
Digitalization. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have brought a greater
urgency in accelerating companies' digitization efforts to unlock new operational
10 FEBRUARY 2021 | HydrocarbonProcessing.com

gains. Digitally enabled disruptions in major end-markets-such as transportation,
computers and electronics, semiconductors, agriculture, and housing and construction-can affect business models
across the industry. The chemicals industry workforce is under increased pressure
to reduce time to market given the emergence of new entrants, increasing bargaining power of existing downstream players
and the power of digital technologies.
Recoded careers. In addition to a renewed focus on attracting skilled new employees, companies should develop the
existing workforce. For example, some
companies are enabling scrum teams of
data engineers, data scientists and technical experts to work together to solve internal and customer problems.4 They can
also transform typical hierarchical structures with cyber-physical collaboration-
such as reimagined collaborations or
super teams (humans and intelligent machines working together fruitfully), which
could provide transformative insights and
solutions.5 Companies can devise unique
programs with a broader objective to
grow the existing workforce so that they
can add value to future business plans. In
addition to formal training, companies
have been providing diversified exposure
to business leaders by moving them to
cross-functional roles every few years to
enhance their value and competencies.
Perhaps the final challenge is how to
engage and retain a tenured workforce.
Could the looming brain drain from retiring employees be turned around by
building a stronger cross-generational
pairing to leverage the knowledge of

Organizational agility. Organizational
agility, driven by its four levers (portfolio,
assets, processes and commercial), can
help the chemicals industry increase efficiency by building a more flexible asset
base relying on more diverse feedstocks
managed by increasingly digitalized and
automated processes. The industry has
an opportunity to cut costs and become
more agile by making people, processes
and technologies more conducive for the
post-COVID future.
On the way to transforming their organizations, leaders may have to constantly
probe their plans and course correct to
deliver added value. They should continually assess hard or even unfavorable business decisions. Continual self-assessment
can go a long way in generating a resilient
company. After all, the endgoal in tackling these questions is simple: building a
chemical company of the future by making bold choices today for the work of
tomorrow; expanding job canvases of the
workforce by creating redesigned, cyberphysical teams and fungible roles; and
embracing a digital workplace culture that
remains open to future innovations.6
LITERATURE CITED
Dickson, D., et. al., " The future of work in oil, gas
and chemicals, " Deloitte Insights, October 2020,
online: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/
industry/oil-and-gas/future-of-work-oil-and-gaschemicals.html
2
Dickson, D., et. al., " Oil, gas and the energy transition, " Deloitte Insights, August 2020, online:
https://www2.deloitte.com/xe/en/insights/industry/oil-and-gas/oil-gas-energy-sector-disruption.
html
3
Yankovitz, D., et. al., " Digital opportunities for
chemical enterprise: Creating lasting value, " Deloitte
Insights, 2018, online: https://www2.deloitte.com/
content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/manufacturing/us-manufacturing-digital-opportunities-forchemical-enterprises.pdf
1

Complete literature cited available online at
www.HydrocarbonProcessing.com.
DUANE DICKSON has more than
38 yr of business and consulting
experience in senior leadership
positions in major industrial and
health care products companies.
He is a Vice Chairman and Principal
in Deloitte Consulting LLP's Energy
Resources and Industrials industry group, as well as
the U.S. Oil, Gas and Chemicals sector leader.

Hydrocarbon Processing - February 2021

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