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2009 was year where cement industry news was really dominated by three factors: the economy, the Chinese, and the environment. Here are some of the stories we at BGE believe were the most important of the year: It’s the economy, stupid – The economic collapse and its effect on the cement industry may have started in ernest in [...] The Financial Times reports today that the major cement manufacturers expect cement demand in Europe and The US to be 30% and 44% (respectively) lower than in 2007. A squeeze on infrastructure projects, thanks to exploding government debts and tightening of spending is primarily to blame, they said. The major producers are clearly focused on developing markets [...] “Why would you waste time changing that? We never had any complaints!” An associate was recently relaying a story to me about how he was trying to improve some of the documentation going to the customer when he was hit with these statements. We’ve all heard this and most of us have probably fallen victim to it [...] Part five – A new reality and the way forward Ours has been a long journey, starting with a melting pot of equipment manufacturers and cement producers who had close ties, progressing through a period of globalization. We watched the Chinese enter the market and examined the response. Today we close our story by taking a final [...] Part Four: The response To this point, everything we’ve discussed in this series has been a trip down memory lane. Today we start to examine the latest changes, and where things stand today. Western equipment suppliers had already been in a race to remain competitive, and cost reduction was a major focus for the reasons described in Part [...] Part Three: Enter The Dragon Previously we examined the cement industry and the relationship between all the players as it existed for generations, and then looked at how it began to change in the face of globalization. Today our little story about differentiation and changes in the marketplace is going to turn its focus on the relatively [...] Part Two: Globalization and Consolidation This is the second article in continuing series about how equipment and service suppliers differentiate themselves in the eyes of the cement producers. In the previous article, “One big happy family” we examined the time period where cement producers, equipment suppliers and manufacturers were generally well mixed and experience was widely shared. [...] Cement producers today face a globally competitive economic landscape and a wide variety of choices in how they approach major and minor capital expenditures. For suppliers the game is all about differentiation and defining what value they can offer. How can the producers navigate these waters? We at BGE thought it would be worthwhile to look [...] It doesn’t happen often, so we should celebrate when the mainstream media praises a waste fuel program. This Tulsa World article includes some very positive statements about the Lafarge tire burning program at the Tulsa plant, and avoids the FUD that normally accompanies such an article (only to provide “balance” of course!) They even make a [...] Here’s an exercise: Make a list of all the industries that have resisted some fundamental change in their business environment, be it regulatory or market driven, on the grounds that the result would be devastating to the business, the job market and ultimately costly for consumers. The industry was just too big, too important, and society [...] |
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