Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Integration  of Polychrome into Sun Chemical . ... from Mr. Iwata's book

DIC’s plan to integrate Polychrome into Sun Chemical was very complicated.      Polychrome produced more plates in Europe than in US.     When president Piot showed his plan to bring European technical staff to US and concentrate R&D effort, DIC technical staff stationed in Polychrome GmbH R&D loudly opposed his plan and accused him of his amateurish management.       Given this S Kawamura had to decide to retire J Piot.        Don Wheeler who came from McKinsey was picked to be the next president to ensure smooth  integration into Sun Chemical run by E. Barr.
At around that time there was an overture from Kodak, but DIC did not trust J Piot to be able to handle such a delicate issue.          In addition there was another issue of disposal of resin company Polychrome owned and it was run by a self promotiing "next president of Polychrome".      It was considered rather difficult to remove him.      And S.Kawamura himself needed to persuade him to go along with J Piot.