Thermal Spray Competition

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Thermal spray coatings shops worldwide are seeing unprecedented growth in recent times. New thermal spray and metallizing service shops are sprouting up all over the world nowadays. While that is good for the thermal spray industry in general, the levels of competition are getting more and more fierce day by day. How do you maintain your competitive edge in the midst of this feeding frenzy in the thermal spray coatings business? Consider the fact that thirty or forty years ago, if you got into the thermal spray business, your work load was pretty much guaranteed. Not now. You need to stay ahead of your competitors if you want to simply survive let alone grow in the thermal spray and flame spray coatings business.

The first step in being successful is to follow the age old adage : “ Know your competitors “. Let us spend some time discussing this. Years ago, I was working at a thermal spray shop that was acquired by a bigger company whose main line of work was NOT in the thermal spray business. The big boss came up and asked us who our competitors were and wanted us to give IN WRITING a brief description of their strengths, weaknesses, employee count, sales volume, key personnel and so on and we failed miserably. We could name our competitors but that was about it. He said that is bad understanding of who we were fighting against in the marketplace. How can you succeed when you do not know who your enemy ( figuratively speaking of course ) is?
That is great advice I thought and it is applicable even today to all industries including the thermal spray coatings business whether you are strong in plasma spray, hvof spray, LPPS or any other special coatings business. There are easy ways to get basic information about any company – credit reporting agencies and company information agencies are all abound with information. Identify five or six major competitors to your thermal spray operations and study them in detail and write down the data. You need to use judgement in isolating your competitors; for example, if your thermal spray coatings business is in northeastern United States, then chances are the thermal spray shop in southern California or Mexico is not a viable competitor; by the same token if your thermal spray service shop is in southern India in Chennai, then the thermal spray shop in Mumbai is potentially a viable competitor. Write down their key personnel, their annual sales, their loan burden, their strengths and weaknesses, their key markets and so on. You then need to concentrate on your improving your strengths and eliminating your weaknesses and then compete fiercely in order to succeed.