Being partner of choice through reliability

Throughout the Group and beyond, Evonik promotes a culture whose criteria for success are the courage to innovate, sparing no effort and responsible action. This makes us both a reliable and a preferred cooperation partner for our customers, suppliers and business partners as well as for public institutions and our neighbors. Even though our roots lie in Germany, the concept of cooperation on a global scale is an integral part of our business model. Trust and reliability are key to long-term partnerships - especially with regard to the close research and development cooperation we maintain with customers, colleges and universities in many countries.

Cooperating closely with customers

Trust in a partner’s reliability is the foundation of every customer relationship. This applies all the more when it comes to developing products proactively, in other words, manufacturing a component in-house for a customer’s end product. As was the case with the Predator® soccer boot. The top-of-the-line boot by adidas AG is - appropriate to the sport involved - the product of real team work between the sportswear manufacturer, a processing company and our Performance Polymers Business Unit. Its product VESTAMID® E is used in the boot to play a vital supporting role in the truest sense. This is because the outer soles and the fastening system for the replaceable cleats are made using our polyamide 12 elastomers. These tailor-made plastics not only make the sole more flexible and lightweight. They also make it more stable. Not that this product is simply a one-off masterpiece. The team partners have been working together since the launch of the model series, with the current shoe representing the sixth Predator® generation.

Long-term partnerships

Many of the cooperative ventures in which we develop new products with customers and business partners are equally long-lasting. For many of our products and solutions, partnerships and cooperative ventures are actually an indispensable aspect of bringing new business strategies to market. Joint ventures such as the one with SolarWorld Group represent a case in point. Here, the roles are clearly defined: Evonik produces the precursors trichlorosilane and monosilane. The joint venture JSSI uses these to manufacture solar silicon, which in turn is used by SolarWorld as a raw material for its wafers and solar cells. The supply contract is of ten years’ duration - and bears impressive testimony to the trust in the reliability of the partners involved.

Global research cooperation projects

To expand our leading position as a specialist, we work closely with universities across the globe. We currently have around 250 cooperation partnerships with universities - from Chemnitz, Frankfurt am Main and Münster in Germany through St. Gallen in Switzerland and Moscow in Russia all the way to Beijing and Shanghai in China. Our collaborative associations with individual research institutes frequently go back many years. After all, partnerships are relationships of trust. And nothing builds trust like longstanding experience of mutual reliability.