Asahi Glass Co. Ltd. - IT Sales Opportunities - 2008

Headquartered at Japan, Asahi Glass Company Limited (Asahi) manufacturers and sells glass, including sheet glass, glass for automobiles, processed glass for industrial uses and others. It is also involved in the processing, manufacture and sale of glass fiber products, chemicals and medical products, among others. The company’s Electronics and Display segment is involved in the manufacture and sale of glass for flat-panel displays (FPDs) and cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), glass frits, parts for semiconductor manufacturing equipment, optoelectronics parts, synthetic silica products and printed circuit boards (PCBs), among others. Its Chemical segment offers soda ashes, sodium hydroxide, chlorine products, potash, fluorine resin, ion-exchange membranes and iodine, as well as vinyl chloride monomers and polymers, among others. The Others segment provides refractory products, fine ceramics and others. The company has 246 subsidiaries and 47 associated companies.

Industry trends and drivers have a direct or indirect affect on IT spending of all companies operating within an industry. For example – increase in sourcing from low cost countries might influence Asahi to relook at their supply chains, resulting in selling opportunities for SCM solutions, collaboration tools etc. Thus, we can conclude that industry spending on any particular IT product or service is an important indicator of the criticality of that product or service for the industry. Based on the IT spend information available in ‘TechNavio’, we have computed a ‘criticality score’ for various IT products and services, for Asahi

Various company level developments and events are important indicators of selling opportunities and drive the sales of IT products and services. For example – an acquisition by Asahi might result in opportunities for IT migration and integration services. By tracking these sales drivers (using ‘TechNavio’), we have arrived at a demand score for each product and service.

Through an in-depth analysis of industry trends and drivers and company level developments and events, we have made the ‘IT Selling Opportunities Map’ for hardware, software and IT services for Asahi. These maps have been divided into four zones representing Level I, Level II and Level III opportunity areas. Level I opportunity areas have the highest scores and hence, there is a high probability that Asahi will buy these products and services. Level II opportunity areas have lower scores and hence, lower probability to sell to Asahi Level III opportunities have the lowest scores and hence, unlikely to sell to Asahi.

The report is meant for IT vendors and intends to help them identify selling opportunities within the company. Further, the identified sales drivers can be used to penetrate these accounts or increase current share of the customer's wallet. Also, the report lists key IT spending decision makers, which will enables salesperson to directly contact the key executives within the company.