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e-Business in the chemical, rubber and plastics industryduring the adaptation phase, those company’s employees who were not receptive tocomputational knowledge had to be replaced with more skilled ones.Data exchange with business partnersAs usually in the chemical industry, an important application area for e-business atMedikémia is the procurement of direct supplies. In many countries, the shortage ofresources in the regional or national market makes it necessary for companies in thechemical sector to procure direct supplies in other countries. Medikémia imports suppliesfor example from Israel, Italy, Russia and Slovakia. In data exchanges with suppliers,requests for offer are often initiated by e-mail. Medikémia does normally not use webbasedservices of suppliers for procuring primary material.Another important internal user of e-business is the sales department, which has to plansales activities 15 months in advance. Medikémia uses its own website forcommunication with customers, for example to inform about special offers. This issupported by direct e-mails to buyers.Multinational clients of chemical products often prefer to use web-based EDI forexchanging data with sellers, in particular to enable a continuous monitoring of the stock.Medikémia maintains EDI-connections with almost all multinational stores in Hungary,such as Metro, Cora, Auchan, Tesco, Praktiker, Baumax and Obi. In total, the company isconnected with about 140 stores by EDI. However, Medikémia regards it as adisadvantage of this system that it reduces the personal contacts between buyers andsellers, because it makes it more difficult for sellers to communicate specific informationabout the product (e.g. new aspects) or the availability of new products. On the otherhand, EDI has been experienced as much more efficient and time-saving than any otherdata exchange system the company has used so far.In connection with EDI, some business partners of Medikémia use online tendersystems for price negotiations. This mechanism is very advantageous for the buyer,because the best price on the market for the desired product can be obtained very fast.However, the systems do not enable the seller to have information about prices offered.He is only informed whether his price was the best one or not. Again, sellers do not havethe opportunity to communicate information about the product such as quality or specificcomponents and aspects.Medikémia has an online catalogue of products, 159 but this is rather a list of products andnot a truly e-catalogue which is based on a widely accepted catalogue standard.According to Medikémia, wholesale traders usually do not use e-business; they still preferto make orders by telephone. While wholesale traders deal with own capital and areresponsible for their own stock, they choose to contact the producer personally and to getas much information as possible about the product. Doing business in the traditional way(i.e. by personal contacts) is quite characteristic for the relation between wholesalers andMedikémia, not only in the case of establishing first contacts. This reflects that thechemical products market is a relatively small part of the overall Hungarian chemicalindustry, typically based on long-standing business relations between sellers and buyers.Wholesalers rather prefer to pick up the phone and ask their "acquaintances" if a certainis available, or when will it be available.159 See http://www.medikemia.hu/files/tiny_mce/Image/FTP/PREV_PREL.htm.155