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DR NIRMAL KOSHTI
NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & HEAD INNOVATION, GALAXY SURFACTANTS LIMITED
FUTURE OF SPECIALITY CHEMICALS
Ensuring sustainability across the entire value stream of the product is critical and will be the core of every products’ development and operations
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needs, and preferences can have a 360° shift in a concise span, as short as few weeks to few months. Thus, the brands and ingredients manufacturers have to be agile and ready to deal with such adhoc situations in the future. This shall drive product innovations, supply chain rewiring, and manufacturing process redesigning. Digitisation has exponentially sped up information dissemination, exchanging ideas, and shaping consumer expectations, thus sharpening their demand to specificities. Consumers are looking for customised solutions for their skin & hair care routine and won’t mind paying a premium. Various small, local, and niche brands are gearing up to cater to this demand. This puts up the additional impetus to come with Value for Money, ‘More from Less,’ multi-functional, multi-purpose products and ingredients design with unique positioning that solves critical consumer problems. It is, therefore, in the industry’s best interest to align and plan for the next decade of transformation where the product value proposition, aspects of sustainability, safety, and hygiene will be at the core of the design.
top segment in India’s chemicals exports, spe- Safety – Safe products & practices ciality chemicals play a key role in defining our ‘Made-Safe’ products, i.e., containing country’s export-import balance and have been non-toxic, harmless, safe ingredients, a value creator for the economy. And with CO- are the consumer’s right. The expectaVID-19, the demand has only been increasing. tion is justified considering the products The Home & Personal Care market globally as of FY come in contact with human skin. 2019 stood at approximately US $ 520 billion and the Innovative ingredients and Speciality Ingredients market stood at approxitheir process design, as we mately US $15 billion. advance, will be critically “Manufacturers of COVID-19 has transformed many aspects evaluated on their safety ingredients for the Home and of this sector, specifically hygiene and health - Safe in use and design. Personal Care segment need care. It has changed the supply chain sceManufacturers of ingreto innovate processes for narios, business methodology, and re-aligned dients for the home and minimal impurities in their business priorities. personal care segment products” COVID-19 has changed the entire paraneed to innovate prodigm. It has re-programmed the market and the cesses for minimal impuconsumer of the future. rities in their products. Health, hygiene, and safety have become the conThis can be best understood sumers’ priority, emphasizing the importance of these behav- considering preservatives in home and iours like never before. And so is nature care & sustainability, personal care products. Traditionally, the as emphasised and made conscious by lockdowns when the preservation systems contained Formhuman activity was cut down. aldehyde releasing molecules, HalogeCOVID-19 has also displayed that consumer behaviour, nated molecules, Parabens & Isothiazo-
