SABIC vice chairman and CEO Mohamed Al Mady has stressed that innovation is central to achieving economic prosperity and said government, academia and private enterprise should work harmoniously to create an “innovation ecosystem.”

Al Mady was speaking on the opening day of the 8th Annual Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) Forum in Dubai on November 20.

“The companies that will be the true leaders will be those that don’t just optimise within an industry, but actually reshape and redefine their industry.  Innovators take control of their own destiny and shape the nature of competition,” Al Mady told the three-day forum, which is an annual event offering valuable insights from leading chemical industry executives. The conference theme was “Innovation: Foundation for Chemical Value Chain Leadership.”

Al Mady emphasised that successful corporate innovation is not defined by the number of patents a company owns or the products it brings to market but by the financial return from those products. Innovation moves the strategic drivers of business creating better products and services which are rewarded by the market,  he said.

The Gulf is a global petrochemicals hub

Speaking about Sabic’s innovation strides in exploring cost-effective resources for feedstock, he said, “We are working to get more added value for chemicals from oil, more olefins from syngas, hydrogen from water. Our fundamental principle is ‘there is no cheaper resource than the one we do
not utilise’.”

Touching on the growing trend towards energy efficiency in the automobile industry that requires a concerted introduction of multiple innovations in light-weighting, drivetrain, and energy storage, Al Mady said, “Sabic is proactively engaging automotive companies for novel solutions like the recent glazing solutions for the Volkswagen XL10 concept car or by the announced SPE award-winning solutions with other companies such as Ford.”

On the need to be constantly prepared for the future, he said, “Contending with constant change is the price we must pay to meet the challenges of the future. Al Mady is also the chairman of the GPCA, which was established in 2006 with Sabic as one of its eight founding members.