SpecialChem launches new websites centered on Universal Selectors for richer and faster selection of chemicals and materials

Paris, France, November 3, 2014 - SpecialChem announces the launch of completely revamped websites revolving around its Universal Selectors for chemicals and materials. The goal of the new Universal Selectors is to collaboratively gather all chemicals and materials in the world and provide the knowledge to select them.

“On one hand, today’s formulators and engineers dealing with chemicals and materials are confronted with an immense and growing number of choices of heterogeneous products, from all around the world. On the other hand, they need to develop faster, and at a lower cost, increasingly complex products to meet new performance requirements and comply with constantly evolving regulations,” says Christophe Cabarry, SpecialChem CEO. “To help them make quick yet solid decisions, with less trial and error, we have created performing material selection tools known as the Universal Selectors that we have enriched with expert content.“

The Universal Selectors cover the domains historically served by SpecialChem: Polymer Additives; Ingredients for Paint, Coatings & Inks; Ingredients for Adhesives & Sealants; and Ingredients for Cosmetics & Personal Care. One new Selector dedicated to Plastics and Elastomers has been added, resulting from the strategic alliance between SpecialChem and Matweb announced in October 2013.

SpecialChem Universal Selectors differ in several key aspects from the number of buyers’ guides and product directories available on-line:

• Exhaustive: the SpecialChem goal is to propose technical data on ALL commercially available chemicals and materials from ALL the suppliers in the world. There is no need for suppliers to pay to have their products entered into the Universal Selectors.
• Crowd-sourced: besides a large team of tech data managers who are constantly looking for new product data, SpecialChem relies on its community of members - the largest in the world when it comes to chemicals and materials with 500k+ professionals - to report missing products or suppliers.
• Standardized data and multi-faceted search: product information provided by suppliers is heterogeneous when it comes to applications, chemical families or performance. SpecialChem strives to standardize its Universal Selectors nomenclatures to ease searches and enhance product comparison. Standardized data is also the key to enriched search strategies.

At launch, SpecialChem’s new Universal Selectors already offer technical data on over 160,000 products. Through its model of collaborative data gathering, this number is due to grow rapidly in the near future.

“Material selection, new product development and innovation are knowledge-intensive processes that go far beyond product information,” says Cabarry. “This is why our Universal Selectors are enriched with intimately linked expert knowledge. The SpecialChem network of experts-- more than 200 carefully selected global specialists -- have formalized decades of applied knowledge into Product Selection Guides which list the technical options product developers face and help to guide their choices. These experts also propose Online Courses or Starting Point Formulations. Access to this expert knowledge leads to more educated technical choices and less trial and error, saving time and money and increasing the quality of final products.”

SpecialChem paid-for services, including Commercial Acceleration and Open Innovation as well as its Advertising and Online Courses, will remain unchanged but are each expected to benefit from the improved features offered to the communities of members and users.

To access the Universal Selectors:

Cosmetics Ingredients Universal Selector: http://cosmetics.specialchem.com/selectors/ingredients

Adhesives Ingredients Universal Selector: http://adhesives.specialchem.com/selectors/additives<

Coatings Ingredients Universal Selector: http://coatings.specialchem.com/selectors/additives

Plastics & Elastomers Universal Selector: http://omnexus.specialchem.com/selectors/thermoplastics

Polymer Additives Universal Selector: http://polymer-additives.specialchem.com/selectors/additives

Bio-based Chemicals & Materials Selector: http://www.specialchem4bio.com/bio-based-technologies/selector

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SpecialChem
100 rue Petit, 75019 Paris
France

+33 1 72 76 39 00

www.specialchem.com