Implementation of Video Conferencing for Ashland Specialty Chemicals

Kelli Young
Managerial Applications of Information Technology (MIS 535)
DeVry University, Keller School of Management

Table of Contents

Abstract 3 Company Background 3 Business Problem 4 High Level Solution 6 Benefits of Solving the Problem 7 Approach 9 Business Process Changes 10 Technology or business practices used to augment the solution 12 Conclusions and overall recommendations 12 High-level Implementation Plan 13 Summary of Project 14 References 15
Proposed Implementation of Video Conferencing for Ashland Specialty Chemicals

Abstract

The new technology we are looking to implement is the introduction of video conferencing for Ashland Specialty Chemicals. The introduction of video conferencing will result in better business interactions between Ashland and their customers and interaction between Ashland employees who are not in the same location.

Company Background

Ashland Inc. is specialty chemical company that is publicly traded and generated 7.8 billion in revenues in fiscal year 2013 (Ashland Inc., n.d.)1. Ashland has its global headquarters in Covington, Kentucky and has offices and manufacturing sites through the country and all over the world. The company is most well known for its refinery business that was sold in the 1990’s.
As of today, Ashland has four major commercial units. Ashland Hercules Water Technology (AHWT), Ashland Performance Materials (APM), Ashland Specialty Ingredients (ASI), and Valvoline. Ashland recently announced the sale of its AHWT commercial business, which serves as its water treatment, and biocide line of business. This portion of the business has been sold to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice for approximately $1.8 billion in cash (Bomgardner, 2014)2. Prior to the sell of AHWT, Ashland had announced it would be doing a global re-organization to align its business model to reflect those top-quartile chemical companies. This has resulted in cutting up to 1000 jobs through both voluntary and involuntary severance offers. As of the 2013 annual report, Ashland had 14,600 employees around the globe.
Ashland manufactures specialty chemicals that are sold in to many different markets. Some of which include, its APM business line that is majority composite polymers and gel coats that are often used as a colored coating on boats. There is also Ashland Specialty Ingredients, which is made up of a large portion of personal care polymers and cellulosic-based polymers that end up in a variety of things ranging from hair care products to paint coatings. There is also Valvoline, which most people are familiar with as a result of the Valvoline Instant Oil Change (VIOC), which are just a portion of the Valvoline business unit. There is also the Valvoline motor oil, which is one of the largest motor oil manufacturers in the world (Ashland Inc., n.d.)3 And finally, there is Ashland Hercules Water Technology, which makes chemical and non-chemical water treatment products for industrial, commercial and municipal customers (Ashland Inc., n.d.)3
Business Problem

Ashland is a global company with presence in over 6 countries including the United States, India, and Brazil. As a result of being an international company and being such a large company employees from different countries are always working with people in another country on any particular project. In order for individuals to work together meetings must take place over the phone or through a WebEx if everyone is not able to fly and meet together in person. In addition to having employees all over the world, Ashland also has customer’s that are worldwide as well. The problem is, with having customers and employees worldwide teleconference calls and WebEx meetings are not always the most beneficial means of communication but have become the best options when it is not feasible to meet together face to face. There are times when the customer has a problem or is running a trial and they are not getting the results they expected or were told they would when they were provided the product, and they have no way to show Ashland what process they are using to run the trial other than by descriptions or pictures. This can be problematic especially if there is an emergency issue where a product is causing the machinery to smoke or is emitting smoke and the customer is unsure why. Other than taking video footage on a phone or using some sort camera there is no other way to capture the footage. This same scenario could happen at an Ashland facility and the plant manager may need to talk with the chemist, research and development group, as well as Environmental, Health, and Safety to try and determine the problem as well as provide footage. Again, beyond pictures, with the current Ashland setup there is no way to document these incidents. And even with the pictures you still must send them to someone through email, which sometimes isn’t always efficient.
There are also times when individuals may be working together on a project and each person has their own set of ideas for how thing should be executed. Aside from having a teleconference call or someone hosting a WebEx there isn’t a way for everyone to get together and collaborate on a project that is still cost efficient and doesn’t involve individuals having to travel potentially internationally, to work together. There are also those instances where an emergency may occur and there is no way for individuals to converge together in order to discuss and come to a conclusion together, and a conference call or WebEx wouldn’t be the most optimal way to handle this kind of situation either. With the current resources Ashland has in place business Ashland is missing a lot of opportunities both internally and externally with its customers.
High-level Solutions In order to Ashland employees to have improved interaction with one another and to improve their customer experience, I am proposing that each manufacturing site and office building be renovated to now have at least one video conferencing room. I am also proposing that when an employee needs a new laptop their new laptop will be equipped with a web cam. This will benefit the customers by allowing them to interact with their Ashland representative in a personal way even when they are unable to meet face to face. This will also improve the relationship and communications between Ashland employees, as employees will now be able to build better relationships with individuals that they would not normally have visual interactions with. Employees and customers will also be able to use non-verbal communication cues when interacting with others while using the video conferencing features. This is something that prior to the implementation of this feature Ashland was lacking unless individuals were able to interact face to face. Furthermore, by rolling this plan out this will put Ashland in a position to better communicate with it’s customers who have video conferencing features at their site locations, and will also reduce the amount of money spent on flying employees around the world to meet with customers as well as to meet with other employees to complete a project. In order to improve these processes, it is being proposed that each office location have one videoconference room for each department, and for those locations that are smaller and may have one individual supporting a department at that particular site, then they should have one videoconference room. Each plant facility will have one video teleconference room. Also, in the process of improving and implementing the video conferencing as new hires come in and old employees need their laptops replaced they will be provided with laptops that have the ability to video chat and have a built in camera.
Benefits of Solving the Problem
There are several benefits to adding video conferencing to Ashland. One major benefit is it will cut down on travel costs. Although nothing will fully replace the immediacy and impact of live interactions, a large number of business trips can be eliminated by videoconference (“”The Top Five Benefits””, 2013) 4. The easiest expense to calculate when trying to determine the return on investment (ROI) of a video conferencing investment would be travel reduction. Once Ashland has made the initial investment of making all Ashland facilities capable of video conferencing the system in a sense will pay for itself. The start up costs would be training, equipment, service, and networking; but once the initial expenses are paid video conferencing will more than pay for itself in comparison to the amount of money that would annually be spent on employee travel (2013) 4.
Another benefit with the addition of video conferencing would be in regards to the hiring process. The company will be able to save money on job candidates. If a candidate is located out of town or if there is an interview panel, there is no longer the need to fly people to one location. A candidate could be instructed to go to the nearest Ashland facility and interview with individuals via video conferencing. Another feature of video conferencing that is not available during an in person interview is the ability to record the interview. This can be helpful if you have someone who is unable to attend the interview and also when you discuss the candidates later. Individuals may have a varying interpretations or versions about what a particular person said but with video conferencing you have the ability to go back and re-play the interview and may gain a better understanding and this can help with the decision making process.
Video conferencing can also have a positive impact on employee retention. One example includes having better cooperation by allowing remote employees to become closer faster with other team members (2013) 4. Another example that is very important is the ability to have work life balance. By introducing video conferencing and not requiring employees to travel so much they are able to spend much more time with their family, when they would have previously been traveling. Another benefit would be by having videoconferencing employees are able to work remote more often and still is able to feel connected to the group or team they are working with.
Another great benefit to videoconferencing is the competitive advantage it will give Ashland. Information can be shared over a larger audience much quicker and efficiently when you introduce video conferencing. Email is contingent upon the individuals opening and reading the emails and telephone interaction isn’t always the most ideal. Video conferencing can lead to fast decision-making, which will move projects along leading to customers seeing results in a must faster time frame. Customer interaction can improve and can lead to more individuals interacting with the customer to ensure the customer is having all their needs met and they will have more than one or two contacts within the company. If travel is no longer a constraint in regards to who can get out to see the customer the customer can build a much better working relationship and have contacts in several departments that they can depend on when an issue may arise. On the manufacturing side, Ashland can ensure quality control without having to send quality assurance individuals to every plant to inspect. Ashland can verify product quality or even make revisions to a formulation all through video conferencing and never have a chemist come to the plant. Ashland competitors will still continue to have to rely on emails, telephone calls, and other out dated technology to communicate with its customers and employees, which gives Ashland a clear advantage over others.
Finally, one last benefit that Ashland can use in trying to become a more green company is the environmental benefits of video conferencing. By reducing the amount of travel that Ashland employees are doing, Ashland will drastically reduce it’s carbon footprint and ensure their regulatory compliance.
Approach
Ashland must first prioritize the sites that should have video conferencing in order of importance and then determine how they will put this plan into action. Ashland must determine what training must be done in order to ensure employees are able to fully use the new tools they have been given in order for Ashland to see its return on investment. They must identify what software they would like to use for video conferencing and who will come in and set up these rooms. There will also need to be a new group within the information technology (IT) group that will need to focus on this project for a certain amount of time while this is being rolled out to all the Ashland sites. And once all the sites have been upgraded to have video conferencing capabilities you must still ensure the IT staff is capable of handling and trouble shooting video conferencing issues as they arise. Finally, Ashland will need to notify it’s employees of the type of work and meetings that can take place via videoconferencing and ensure this information has been added to the employee handbook.
Business Process Changes With the introduction of video conferencing there will be several changes to how business is done on a daily basis. Teams that are working on projects together will no longer have to be in one centralized location, and as a result positions can be posted and filled for all Ashland sites. Another change that can be implemented with this introduction is the need for last minute travel, if a customer needs to meet with representatives from Ashland on short notice and they have video conferencing capabilities, to avoid the travel expense Ashland can suggest they have a videoconference meeting in order to address their issues. This can let the customer know that you are much closer than you ever were before and can result in resolving the issues much faster and also for much cheaper. Some other business process changes include no longer having to fly in prospective job candidates for interviews or flying in employees for a panel interview. The new process would be to provide the candidates with a list of Ashland locations that are close to them and they can determine which site they will go to for their interview and the interview will be done using videoconferencing. In the case of an employee being unable to attend the actual interview location they will also use the new video conferencing feature to attend the interview as well. This will also lead to less travel expenses. Moving forward, Ashland will live-stream all of its quarterly town hall meetings as well as its annual financial report that is presently just a conference call. Employees will begin to be much more engaged and it will take on a more intimate feel when this information is presented through a live stream as opposed to a WebEx or simple conference call as they presently are. By introducing videoconferencing departments can hold department wide meetings using video conferencing and the department will begin to feel much closer to one another even if there are employees that are all over the country and even the world. As such, because Ashland is an international company once an employee has their laptop replaced with one that has a web-cam employees will no longer have to work later into the evening to ensure they are able to join the meeting. Employees can join the call from their home as well. Also, when training must be done on a large scale, it will no longer be necessary to fly all employees in for the training, the training can be live-streamed and recorded and placed on Ashland intranet site for employees to review at their leisure and for those employees who were unable to attend the live-stream. Video conferencing will change the way business is run at Ashland but travel expense will be low and productivity will begin to increase as employees can rest assured that the best candidates are being interviewed and offered the job since location is no longer an issue. And customers will begin to have a better working relationship with Ashland by knowing that they are always available through video conferencing.
Technology or Business Practices Used to Augment the Solution There are several different platforms available to use for video conferencing but in order to have added software or confusion it is recommended that Ashland use the video conferencing feature through lotus notes or WebEx. Both of these programs are both features that Ashland already has a subscription to and all employees are relatively familiar with so the training and learning curve would not be long. It could be possible to use both features but it would come down to which service is cheaper unless they each can be added with the subscription Ashland already pays for and would not cost anything additional.

Conclusion and Overall Recommendation Ashland’s vision is “to be the best specialty chemical in the world” and in order for this to happen, Ashland must continuously improve itself. One major way of doing this is by introducing video conferencing. This will again, give them an advantage over their competitors who do not have these capabilities and will also allow them to acquire the most talented resources through video conference interviews. To ensure Ashland can see it’s return on investment and to ensure that Ashland employees are aware of this new feature that is available to them it is imperative to track the usage in the beginning. It is recommended that processes be in place to accurately track the number of hours and the number of times all users are using this new feature. It is also recommended that as more sites are beginning to use video conferencing that focus groups are held and surveys be sent out periodically to get feedback from employees about their feelings about this new feature and continually improve based on the information provided. It is also recommended that prior to the launch of each new site users on that campus are made well aware through emails, signage, etc. that they will soon have the ability to do video conferencing. Introducing videoconferencing is not an easy task and not something that will go without a few bumps in the road, but as long as Ashland plans properly, they will be in a position to collaborate and gain the associate business, the operational, and financial benefits that come with visual communications (“”Five Steps to Create””, 2008).
High-level implementation plan Once the board has approved the implementation of video conferencing, the project plan must now begin. Ashland will need to decide how long they think it will take to get all campuses equipped with their video conferencing rooms based on the size of the campus and the number of departments held on the campus. All Valvoline Instant Oil Change locations will have one video conferencing room or laptop that is to remain on the premises during business hours. All large campus locations will have on video conference room for each department and smaller campuses will be equipped with one video conference room for the building. Ashland needs to prioritize how they will plan to roll this out to the campus, but it is recommended that the larger campuses be the first to have the equipment installed. After each campus has been renovated with the new technology there will need to be support people on hand or in IT to assist with problems that may occur in the beginning phases. There will also need to be training done once the video conferencing rooms are set up to ensure all employees are able to use the new technology. There will also need to be guidelines added to the employee handbook to ensure all employees understand that video conferencing is to be used for work purposes only and not for personal reasons without prior approval.
Summary of Project To summarize, in order to align Ashland with its vision of “being the best
Specialty chemical company in the world” it is being proposed that Ashland introduce video conferencing to all of its campuses. This will result in Ashland having lower travel expense as employees will be able to connect with their peers, they will be able to connect much more quickly with their customers, and allow for job candidates to interview from a remote Ashland site without Ashland having to incur that travel expense. Video conferencing will result in Ashland employees feeling much more connected to one another and their customers and will be a great benefit and align Ashland to be a top quartile company in the industry.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashland_Inc.#Ashland_Consumer_Markets_.28Valvoline.29

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