Dear Editor,
I have been in this industry long enough to remember the days when the boundaries within the supply chain were much more blurred than they are now.
Lots of systems companies used to fabricate, it was routine for fabricators to install and some hardware companies even manufactured their own doors. As far as I was concerned though, that model had largely been discredited as the industry had given up the idea that it was good business to compete with your customers.
Instead, over the last 10 years in particular, the industry has tended to reward those companies who are specialists at what they do – whether that is in system design, fabrication, hardware manufacture or installation. We’ve even seen a new type of specialist emerge – the third party distributor focused on trade supply.
Until the last few months, I firmly believed that the Euroglaze approach of growing our business by actively helping our customers to grow theirs had become the accepted norm.
However, in the trade fabrication sector, there is growing evidence of suppliers once again starting to encroach on their customers’ territory – whether that is setting up trade counters in competition with them or competing with them for installation contracts.
As a specialist trade supplier, I can absolutely understand the frustration which is currently being felt. Trade customers surely want to feel that their supplier is standing shoulder to shoulder with them, not that it is jostling to get them out of the way.
I would certainly be interested to hear from trade outlets and from installers who feel actively threatened by their supplier or who are struggling to overcome this new challenge.
Martin Nettleton
Managing Director, Euroglaze
