The chemical industry continues to face major challenges. Geopolitical tensions, uncertainty on the sales markets and high investment requirements for digitalization, the circular economy and energy efficiency are putting many companies under pressure and pushing previous business models and pricing strategies to their limits. By Steffen Kampmann, Partner, Prof. Roll & Pastuch & Simon Wiedemann, Consultant, Prof. Roll & Pastuch In specialty chemicals in particular, companies should focus on proactive price management during this time in order to avoid being driven by the market and ultimately being left behind. Systematic price differentiation instead of cost-plus Cost-plus pricing has traditionally been established in most companies in the coatings industry. With this…

Time to read: 5 min Star Wars enthusiasts around the galaxy were captivated by the debut of the new, spherical droid BB-8™ in 2015’s The Force Awakens and subsequently rushed to purchase their own little droids, made by Boulder-based Sphero. Now, fans are eagerly snapping up the new BB-9E droid and the beloved classic, R2-D2. We teamed up with Sphero’s engineers for Force Friday to take a closer look at BB-9E and R2-D2 in two exclusive teardowns. After the teardowns, we talked with three of Sphero’s engineers about their experiences partnering with Disney to develop BB-8, BB-9E, and R2-D2. In this exclusive interview, Senior Electrical Engineer Richard Rhodes and Senior…