Air Products

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 the company should take a cautious approach to the introduction of internet technology.

III. PROBLEMS AND ALTERNATIVES

PROBLEM 1: Senior Management does not view IT as a strategic function

There is a major difference of opinion between senior management, which from the outset places the potential for success in question. The Marketing Manager seems to be against the use of the Intranet which could indicate that he had not been briefed enough on the strategy/technology. An initiative of this magnitude needs to be driven by top management or it is destined for failure.

Alternatives for Problem 1:

a) Top Management should lead an initiative to upgrade the systems. Overall, the Internet team is moving Air Products in the right Direction. However, they must remain focused on the organizations business needs/requirements and take on board and address the concerns of the various departments. I get the impression that certain members of the public web steering committee may have gotten too 'excited' about the potential benefits these new technologies can bring and that concerns expressed by certain managers may have been overlooked. Management has expressed concerns about security, cost and employee abuse if users have open access. Those concerns should be addressed. Rebuilding IT requires top management to rally and lead the troops.

b) Management must become actively involved. Management must take a more active role than just providing money and other resources. This requires supporting:

i. implementation of multi-disciplinary teams

ii. development of organizational strategies for crossing internal political boundaries

iii. interagency agreements to assist in data sharing and acquisition

c) IT improvements must be viewed as long-term commitments.

d) Clearly defined strategy must be formulated. Air Products' Management does not seem to have a clear strategy that has been agreed upon by the relevant people. From a strategic point of view the internet is the right direction, but is important that the various functions within the organization are able to identify the benefits they can gain from it. For example, the sales and operating income was up by 11% in 1995. This would seem to indicate that the sales/marketing area