Chemicals, Materials & Packaging
In chemicals and packaging, a price agreed in January can be wrong by March, because feedstock, energy and freight costs move faster than contracts reprice. Formula pricing, surcharges and packaging returns all depend on data held in the ERP, supplier contracts and spreadsheets kept by one or two people. We connect those records so cost recovery, margin and packaging reporting draw on the same figures. We have not yet published an engagement in this sector.
Discuss this with usMarket context
In the first half of 2026, EU27 chemical exports fell by €7.2 bn (-6.3%) and imports by €5.6 bn (-5.9%), while capacity utilization, at 75%, remained substantially below long-term averages.
In 2023, the EU generated 79.7 million tonnes of packaging waste, or 177.8 kg per inhabitant, and recycled 42.1% of its plastic packaging waste.
Source: Eurostat, Plastic packaging waste in the EU: 35.3 kg per person
Extended producer responsibility schemes for packaging, including the UK's, charge fees on the weight and material of packaging a business places on the market, so specification data now carries a direct cost.
Business challenges
01
Price formulas that lag cost
Index-linked contracts reprice on a lag, and surcharges are agreed customer by customer. Without a view of each contract's formula against current input costs, margin erodes on the accounts nobody reviews.
02
Product margin hidden in allocation rules
Shared plant, energy and overhead costs are allocated by rules set years ago. Product and customer margins built on those rules can rank a loss-making grade among the profitable ones.
03
Packaging data assembled for each return
EPR and plastic packaging tax returns need weight and material per item. When specifications live in supplier PDFs and spreadsheets, every return is a manual exercise with no audit trail.
04
Purchasing that reacts to orders
When distributors and direct customers order on different cycles, plant schedules and raw material buying follow order intake. Inventory swings that start with a distributor restocking look like a change in demand.
Where the opportunity sits
Contract pricing against current inputs
A register of contract formulas, index references and surcharge terms, joined to current input costs, shows which contracts are under-recovering and by how much.
Margin with the allocation rules written down
Rebuilding cost allocation with each rule documented lets finance and commercial teams test how product and customer margin rankings change when a rule changes.
One packaging specification record
Holding weight, material and recycled content per SKU in one maintained table lets EPR and tax returns draw on the same data, with every change logged.
How we approach it
We start read-only with the ERP, contract and price files, purchase price history for the main inputs, and the spreadsheets that hold allocation rules or packaging specifications. We trace one product from raw material purchase to customer invoice and note where costs, prices or weights are typed in by hand. Findings become a prioritized task list, each item with an owner and an acceptance check. If the client wants us to build, the same team delivers the data connections, margin reports and specification records, documented and left in the client's own accounts. Process safety, hazardous materials handling, REACH and other chemical registrations, product stewardship and tax advice stay with the client's specializts and advisers, and we do not file returns on a client's behalf.
How our experience is evidenced
No anonymised engagement in chemicals, materials or packaging is published. This page describes our approach and the capabilities we would apply: pricing and margin analysis, management reporting, data integration and record-keeping controls, as we use them in other sectors.
Questions executives ask
Have you worked with chemical or packaging companies?
We have not published an anonymised engagement in this sector. A proposal would state which parts of the work we have done in other sectors and which would be new.
Do you advise on REACH, CLP or packaging EPR compliance?
No. Chemical registration, classification and packaging compliance decisions stay with your regulatory team and advisers. We organize the product and packaging data those processes depend on, so each figure in a return can be traced to a source record.
Can you model how an energy or feedstock price change affects margin?
Yes, as management information built from your own cost and contract data. The model states its assumptions and allocation rules so finance can check and change them. It is a planning tool and makes no forecast of prices.
Do we need a new ERP for this?
Usually not. Most of the gaps described here sit between the ERP, the contracts and the spreadsheets. If a platform change is justified, we write down why, and how the migration would be checked.
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