CLARIANT MASTERBATCHES ANNOUNCES NEW E-BUSINESS CONNECTIVITY: WEB PORTAL, ONLINE MARKETPLACE AND ERP INTEGRATION

MUTTENZ, Switzerland – July 28, 2003 – Clariant Masterbatches, the world’s leading supplier of color and additive masterbatches, has announced new cost and efficiency savings for its customers through the development of an extensive new e-business system. In conjunction with business partners Accenture, Omnexus and Elemica, Clariant Masterbatches has worked on a program to significantly decrease the time necessary to place or track an order. The new e-business offerings are available now for Clariant customers in Europe with roll-outs planned for North America and Asia during the following year.

“E-business has the potential to lower sourcing, purchasing and inventory costs by streamlining the processes involved. Clariant’s new systems deliver on that promise,” said Dirk Eckert, e-Business Manager for Clariant Masterbatches. “By providing a number of channels and communications methods, we can give any customer a comfortable and effective way to find the right product and purchase it from us.”

Automation in the specification and purchasing processes can enhance order response, reduce errors, provide more reliable shipment information and improve order quality and delivery time. It also reduces “churn,” the repetitive and often unnecessary duplication of activities on both sides of the transaction. When done correctly, automation does not replace long-established personal relationships but instead enables the participants to focus on new product and business developments rather than the mechanics of making the interaction work.

There are now three levels of e-business interaction available to Clariant customers. The first choice allows a customer to work one-on-one with the Clariant Online Business Center at www.myclariant.com. This is Clariant’s dedicated e-business portal, and it is available to any customer with an Internet connection. Customers can place orders for Clariant Masterbatches products; track their current orders; access their purchasing history; view customer-specific price lists; and order product samples, Material Safety Data Sheets, Certificates of Analysis and specifications.

“This new marketplace technology will spread across the industry as more B2B systems integrate with each other,” said Robert Jung, partner at Accenture. As one of the key technology management partners of Clariant, Accenture was responsible for project management and built the system integration between Elemica and Omnexus.

Through a partnership with Omnexus (www.omnexus.com), Clariant has recently added a second level of communication. Omnexus comprises 20 leading plastics suppliers (including Clariant Masterbatches) organized in a global online marketplace to give customers a single source for purchasing plastic materials and related supplies. There are currently more than 24,000 registered users. Once a company registers with Omnexus, its staff has Web access to commerce and technical tools, as well as resources including global industry news and Web seminars that reach more than 70,000 plastic industry professionals. Engineers can search and compare among more than 8,000 different resins from multiple suppliers using up to 210 critical parameters. Purchasing professionals can order resins from more than 50,000 materials and 375 product lines, and then track their orders at any time of the day or night.

In addition, by using Omnexus’s proprietary “UltraLite” tool, customers are able to “light integrate” with their suppliers. The free software component works with the customer’s own network system to automatically submit orders and order changes from an ERP (enterprise resource planning) or legacy system. Minimal system modifications are required. “Customers have commented that it takes only a few days’ time to implement this light integration. By using this option, the gap between the Web-enabled order entry (manual) and the most sophisticated full integration offered by Elemica is reduced, so that we are able to offer a solution for every level of client integration,” added Eckert.

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