CIO Magazine Recognizes Dow for Exemplary Business Integration; Dow Named to CIO-100 List for Third Consecutive Year.

Business/Technology Editors

MIDLAND, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 15, 2002

The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW) today announced its third consecutive receipt of the CIO-100 award presented by IDG's CIO magazine. The CIO-100 annually honors organizations that distinguish themselves as leaders in business and technology innovation. This year's award focuses on 100 organizations that have shown exemplary integration across the enterprise.

"Now, more than ever, companies rely on integrated applications that freely share information," said Abbie Lundberg, Editor in Chief, CIO magazine. "This year's CIO-100 award recipients are being honored because their companies developed an integrated enterprise to enhance their business, from improving relationships with customers to creating a seamless value chain."

Its seventh win overall, Dow's CIO-100 recognition follows a year of integrations and global successes - most notably the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) merger, which is making good progress toward reaching the company's goal of $1.1 billion in cost synergies for Dow within two years. During the rapid conversion of UCC to Dow's information systems strategy, structure, processes and systems, Dow successfully integrated UCC into all aspects of its information systems. The UCC IT integration was achieved exactly one year after the merger's completion and contributed to the significant cost synergies associated with the merger.

"Dow's highly leveraged, standardized IT infrastructure forms the foundation for its e-business initiatives and its successful integration strategy," said Frank Luijckx, senior director of information systems at Dow.

The focus of Dow's integration project was enabling Dow's businesses through information technology, maintaining stable and secure operations and achieving significant IT synergies through a strong, converged platform for advanced communications. To achieve these objectives, Dow developed an aggressive integration strategy focused on establishing global communication capabilities, implementing a standardized global work platform and integrating Dow's global enterprise system. Dow reached the following milestones during the one-year integration:

    -   Day 1: Dow and Union Carbide's networks were connected,
        enabling access to Dow and UCC Intranets and the Internet;
        availability of Dow and UCC transaction systems to appropriate
        personnel; and interconnected e-mail and directory systems for
        secure e-mail exchange.

    -   Day 30: Approximately 10 percent of the former UCC employees
        had Dow Workstations.

    -   Day 120: More then 8,000 Dow Workstations were fully
        implemented.

    -   Day 360: The Diamond System, Dow's global enterprise planning
        system, and global reporting system, which enables Dow
        businesses to quickly and easily gather information to support
        business decision-making and analysis, were fully implemented.

"Persistence and teamwork have proven to be a successful combination, enabling the functional and business synergies that will help Dow become a better and bigger company," said Luijckx. "Not only are we on track to surpass our cost synergy projections, the success of the initiative has enabled Dow to meet customer expectations in an even more economical and timely manner."

In addition to the 2002 CIO-100 award, Dow's efforts have been recognized with two other awards. The Enterprise Value Award (EVA) from CIO magazine honored Dow for its global, Web-based training system, [e-mail]. For the fourth consecutive year, www.dow.com was named one of the Top 100 business-to-business web sites by BtoB magazine.

The recipients of this year's CIO-100 awards were selected by CIO editors and writers, with the recommendations of a panel of industry experts. Complete coverage of the 2002 CIO- 100 is featured in the August 15 issue of CIO magazine and at www.cio.com.

Dow is a leading science and technology company that provides innovative chemical, plastic and agricultural products and services to many essential consumer markets. With annual sales of $28 billion, Dow serves customers in more than 170 countries and a wide range of markets that are vital to human progress, including food, transportation, health and medicine, personal and home care, and building and construction, among others. Committed to the principles of Sustainable Development, Dow and its approximately 50,000 employees seek to balance economic, environmental and social responsibilities.

CIO magazine (launched in 1987) is published by CXO Media Inc. CXO Media serves CIOs, CEOs, CFOs, COOs and other corporate officers who use technology to thrive and prosper in this new era of business. The company strives to enhance partnerships between C-level executives, as well as create opportunities for information technology (IT) and consumer marketers to reach them. In addition to publishing CIO, CXO Media produces www.cio.com, the CIO Insider, www.darwinmagazine.com and www.CSOonline.com, as well as CIO Executive Programs, a series of conferences that provide educational and networking opportunities for corporate and government leaders. In September 2002, CXO Media will launch CSO magazine, a resource for information security executives.

CXO Media Inc. is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading IT media, research and exposition company. IDG publishes more than 300 computer magazines and newspapers and 4,000 book titles and offers online users the largest network of technology-specific sites around the world through IDG.net (www.idg.net), which comprises more than 270 targeted websites in 70 countries. IDG is also a leading producer of 168 computer-related expositions worldwide and provides IT market analysis through 50 offices in 43 countries worldwide. Company information is available at www.idg.com.