Masonry Magazine April 1984 Page. 20
REFLECTIONS
continued from page 18
Another observation is that the masonry trades have lost the most market share in the homebuilding market. While this might bring about a yawn since so much of homebuilding is done by non-union contractors, yet homebuilding represents more square footage of construction than all other construction combined. If all of us took aim at this market and figured out how to penetrate more of it, we'd make up all of our lost shares in all the other markets. This is a goal which needs all of our attention.
Most of you concentrate on the industrial/commercial/institutional market. This market has had an actual annual growth of 2.9% a year, but this is the segment of the market where masonry construction is losing to wood, metal and drywall, to glass, and to various concrete materials. A part of this loss is due to the new fire codes which emphasize fire-suppression systems rather than fireproof materials.
Another part of the loss is due to the emphasis we have all placed on the architect in our promotion. However, the independent architect today actually controls only about 20% of all new construction going in place. The rest of the 80% is controlled by construction organizations with captive architects. I'm talking about firms like K-Mart, Sears, Trammel Crow, Hospital Corporation, pre-engineered metal building contractors, and the Mormon Church. Three hundred owners accounted for approximately $35 billion in non-residential construction in 1982.
Which leads me to ask who are we promoting to? Our national and local organizations have concentrated on architects. We need to rethink this emphasis. IMI has targeted national accounts and owners. NCMA is reviewing its entire promotional concept.
It is a favorite cliche that the masonry industry is fractured with so many groups that we are in effect a babble of tongues cursed to failure. I don't think so. If centralized authority is supposed to create a quicker and better response to competition, then why has General Motors created such a dismal response to Japanese competition?
I believe our problem is coordination rather than confusion. If we could coordinate each of our efforts in marketing the masonry wall or the masonry building, we would have strengths which our competitors do not have because they are not as numerous as we are, and they do not have the collective marketing potential we have. Each of us in the masonry industry is concerned with a piece of the total problem of responding to change. What is missing is an overall objective so that as each of us tackles our piece of the problem, we also solve the overall problem-getting more masonry in place in the most cost-effective way.
Cooperation Within Industry
We've taken some steps in the last ten years toward coordination through such organizations as the Masonry Industry Committee and the Masonry Research Foundation. A number of useful cooperative projects have come from these groups, and we are learning how to work together to tackle problems which no one would have given us a ten-cent bet that we could accomplish ten years ago. We will learn to do more as we learn to work better with each other. So the future is more, not less hopeful than it was ten years ago. I repeat that better coordination toward overall common goals will produce greater results. This should be our objective in the next few years.
I'll end where I started. I think the masonry industry
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20 MASONRY-MARCH/APRIL, 1984