Air Products and Chemicals Inc is a leading chemicals and gases company, operating in over 30 countries and employing 15,000 people world wide.
Air Products have two main business groups, the gas and chemicals groups.
? The gas group produces and supplies industrial gases, such as Oxygen, Helium, Nitrogen for the Paper and Pulp, Food and electronic Industries. The company delivers gases to large-volume customers by building plants adjacent to their facilities. Smaller volume customers get delivers by tanker trucks. Its sales were up 11% in 1995.
? The chemicals group produces a range of specialty chemicals used in the making of other products. Products include Polymer Emulsions used in the making of household paint. Its sales were up 15 % in 1995.
The company which started in 1941 with annual sales of $8,300 has grown to an international corporation with sales of $4.6 billion in 1997. Recently the company has expanded globally with acquisitions in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Internet technology has been introduced in the form of Air Product's Web site. IT managers Bill Townsend and Steve Cameron have proposed to introduce a global internet strategy as well as an Intranet. They say that this internet strategy will produce the communications infrastructure to support the globalization policy while Intranets will support internal communications while providing a better user interface for staff.
In their opinion, this strategy will produce a better information service and more business will be gained through electronic commerce.
Vice President, Peter Mather is not convinced of the strategic gains to be had from Internet technology. While there has been initial interest in the Air Product's Web site, he suggests that th ...