Bring on the evolution

The Medite 2016 Forum is about to enter into its fifth year. Launched at the Design Museum in November 2006, its aim has always been to encourage and stimulate discussion about the future of the timber industry. Over 80 senior executives from the industry, the construction sector, academia and government have become members of the Forum through either contributing articles for our compendiums, the Wood Futures column in the TTJ or taking part in one of our conferences. As such, Medite 2016 has provided a ‘futures forum’ for the industry through conferences, the monthly column in the TTJ, meetings and occasional industry-wide surveys of evolving attitudes about wood and its markets – and it continues to grow.

This fits well with Coillte Panel Products’ programme of product innovation and marketing innovation, linked with its wish to engage with its customers, both within the distribution channel but also, looking forward, to specifiers, end users and policy makers about Coillte’s programme of new product development. Undoubtedly for all companies working within the construction sector, the significance of new product development cannot be overstated.

As we look ahead to 2011 and beyond, the industry will be faced by major economic and environmental challenges to which it will need to respond. Change it must. Change is much better managed when planned and proactively driven. Sadly for those who enjoy the status quo, you can’t change and stay the same.

Government is going to force change. Carbon remains a top priority on its policy agenda and this will impact across the construction industry and deliver change and significant opportunity for the timber industry. On the other hand, the public sector’s capital spending, which has been so key to the construction industry’s impressive recovery in 2010, is going to shrink in 2011.

Governmental energy policies on renewables and specifically on biofuels will challenge the timber industry, creating a new scenario in terms of cost and its raw material supply. Meanwhile competitor products are aggressively developing their case on carbon and are seeking to influence the government’s agenda.

Yet as the future scenario evolves, the timber industry goes forward from a stronger platform than many within the industry may realise. The debate over environmental issues has encouraged specifiers to view timber and wood products with much greater and more positive interest.

In a major independent quantitative survey commissioned by Coillte Panel Products of over 1,300 UK specifiers, undertaken earlier this year, the forest products sector was viewed by specifiers as the product sector most likely to deliver innovation, ahead of concrete, steel and the plastics industries. Furthermore, specifiers wanted to be kept informed of these developments, with over three-quarters saying they sought news about advances in timber based products.

What will be a key issue for the timber industry is how to communicate with specifiers. The current dialogue within the distribution channel is understandably focused so much through procurement on price. What our research told us is that specifiers want a deeper dialogue with producers and manufacturers, not about procurement issues, but about the performance benefits and technical details and USPs of new products. Yet these specifiers haven’t got time for face-to-face meetings, nor for digging around in filing cabinets for brochures. Their requirement is for digital communications that can offer them easy access to the information they want and which is customised to their specific needs.

To ensure its success and capitalise on its new found competitive position, the timber industry needs to establish a strong dialogue with the specifier, additional to and separate from its contact with procurement professionals. That dialogue is more likely to be digital rather than face-to-face, and whilst that may not suit the culture of an industry which has long enjoyed doing business in a very personal way, it is a new type of relationship into which we must evolve, driven by technology, cost-efficiencies and a recognition that the future success of this industry will be dependent on both influencing and listening to specifiers as to what they need, think of our products and how together we can combine to improve them.

To succeed in 2016, this industry will need to be proactive and seek to change its way of doing things. Then this timber industry will evolve from a supplier of mainly commodity products to one producing increasingly value-added, customised products which will be specified as they will meet the environmental, performance and cost demands of the market in 2016.

Let’s bring it on!