Sales and Marketing

WACKER Products Post Sales-Volume Gains in 2011

Our products’ sales volume increased again in 2011, although not as strongly as during 2010. WACKER POLYMERS, in particular, posted significant volume gains in its dispersions and dispersible polymer powders. WACKER POLYSILICON, WACKER SILICONES and WACKER BIOSOLUTIONS also saw volume gains.

New Customer Management System Introduced

As planned, WACKER introduced “SMART” – a new customer management system – in 2011, initially for its three chemical divisions (WACKER SILICONES, WACKER POLYMERS and WACKER BIOSOLUTIONS). WACKER POLYSILICON will follow in 2012. This highly integrated system allows customer data to be recorded, documented and combined from all SAP modules. The decisive advantage of “SMART” is that we have the same information each time we contact a customer, which improves customer service and support. A total of 1,600 employees from the Sales, Customer Service, Marketing and Technical Support units received training in the new system.

Global Sales and Distribution Network

WACKER customers break down into three groups: key accounts, customers, and distributors. Key accounts are high-revenue customers of special significance for WACKER, with corporate key accounts being served by several business divisions. WACKER currently has 39 key accounts with whom we generated around 25 percent of our 2011 revenue in the chemical divisions (WACKER SILICONES, WACKER POLYMERS, WACKER BIOSOLUTIONS) and in WACKER POLYSILICON. About 60 percent of our revenue was from our approximately 8,000 other active customer relationships and around 16 percent with distributors. For its excellent service, successful transfer of production to China, and the product quality provided, WACKER Greater China received the Best Cooperation Award 2011 from Procter & Gamble.

Sales and Distribution Network Optimized

We modified our sales and distribution network to serve our customers even better. The number of our distributors rose year over year. We collaborate with some 280 distributors (2010: 259) and five distributor groups. Since 2011, our African operations have seen us join forces with a new partner who covers the main parts of northern, western, eastern and southern Africa. We are therefore now represented in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal and Kenya. With new distributors in the USA, Russia, Belarus, Poland, China, India, Australia and New Zealand, WACKER is thus active in 87 countries. Just as had been the case in Brazil, we consolidated the majority of our silicone and polymer distribution business with one partner in the remainder of our Americas region. In Australia and New Zealand, as well, our trading activities have been run through a new distributor since April 2011.

Distribution Management

Marketing communication is a key element for strengthening WACKER’s branding and for supporting product sales effectively. In 2011, we spent €14.2 million (2010: €11.0 million) for marketing communication.

Percentage of Marketing Costs

Attendance at 86 Tradeshows Worldwide

WACKER increased its presence at tradeshows in 2011, having a booth at a total of 86 tradeshows (2010: 75). The number of tradeshows attended rose significantly in Asia (a high-growth region), where we participated in 21 tradeshows (2010: 13). We presented our products at 26 tradeshows (2010: 20) in Europe. WACKER’s key tradeshow was the European Coatings Show (ECS), the largest fair of its kind in Europe. At the ECS, we held 862 meetings, almost 60 percent more than two years ago. We analyze our tradeshow success qualitatively and quantitatively.

Tradeshows in 2011