Specialty Chemicals: Trends & Growth

Q1. You’ve led product lifecycle management across water treatment, oilfield chemicals, and speciality polymers. Could you briefly outline how your responsibilities evolved as you moved from technical service roles into senior PLM and commercialization leadership?

In the chemical industry, product lifecycle management covers both the introduction of new products and the ongoing management of existing ones. Earlier in my career, my focus was largely on hands on technical responsibilities. Over time, that evolved into owning the product portfolio end to end across its entire lifecycle.

My involvement now starts with market assessment and competitor analysis, followed by ideation and concept development. These insights are then translated into clear inputs for R&D and development teams. Benchmarking competitor products is an important part of this stage. Once we have clarity, I initiate formal projects, move into pilot-scale development, and prepare samples for field evaluations and customer trials. The outcomes of these trials help determine whether we should scale up the chemistry and which market segments to target.

Based on feedback from pilot studies and trials, we either move toward commercialisation or make further refinements where needed. Once finalised, we build a complete product kit, including brochures, technical data sheets, SDS documentation, and…