Colour by numbers
Glass Times editor Nathan Bushell talks to Deceuninck’s MD Rob McGlennon about the current stresses on the window industry, and how the systems company is positioning itself to meet its customer’s demands.
While a series of lockdowns in 2020/early 2021 drove a significant boom in home improvement – which was still being experienced well into Q4 2021 – the subsequent pressures placed on the supply chain made meeting that demand incredibly difficult for many companies.
Historians in time will probably paint a perfect storm of coronavirus, Brexit, ships stuck in the Suez Canal, raw material shortage, and any number of other geo-political forces, but for businesses tasked with supplying customers with the products they ordered, the solution requires a pragmatic approach.
“The sole focus for us here in the UK is to keep our customers happy,” Rob McGlennon, Deceuninck’s managing director in the UK, told Glass Times, pointing out that the company hasn’t lost any in four years.
“The pressures we are facing are significant, but all companies are facing them: pressure on PVCU will continue until 2022, steel prices remain high, glass supply disrupted across the board, and shipping container costs have risen by $6,000 since April 2021.
“These supply issues are currently defining window and door supply, but not how we deal with them. And we’ve maintained supply to our customers.”
This fragile situation provides Rob with an opportunity to set out his stall and explain how Deceuninck can help pour oil on to troubled waters.
Primarily, Rob said, the systems company has maintained good relations with its resin supplier, which has resulted in consistent supply. Firms that attempted to switch suppliers during the pandemic often found themselves penalised for lack of loyalty, from both their existing supplier and new prospects, he said, and this success is reflected in its sales figures.
“We hit a turnover of £25 million in the first half of 2021,” Rob said, “and we are on target to hit £50 million for the year.
“Our customers are also reporting increases of 40%-60% this year, with colour a driving element. In fact, one customer is now 100% colour, and I would say colour now accounts for more than 60% of our sales.
“This is reflected by recent customer research that showed colour is a major influence on purchasing decisions: 75% of homeowners said colour was an important element when buying windows.”
However, providing your customers with 30 colourways available ex-stock, with a further 20 colours on a 15-day turnaround, requires significant investment in specialist machinery and warehousing space. And this, Rob said, is why some companies were letting their customers down.
“Some of our competitors make to order, we make to stock,” he said.
“Five years ago, we became self-sufficient in foiling, and specific investment included foiling and laminating machinery, and Combilift side loaders.
“So confident are we of our ability to meet orders, that we have provided our customers complete visibility of stock. Therefore, when they order online – which all of them now do – they can see what they are buying, and when that order is placed, it is made against something that we physically hold.”
Another demand that Deceuninck is gearing itself to meet on a European level is sustainability. According to the company’s research, eight out of ten consumers are concerned about plastic pollution. As a result, 15 million euros were invested in an advanced recycling and compounding facility in Belgium.
“We can reprocess up to 45,000 tonnes of post-consumer and post-manufacturing PVCU per year,” Rob said. “We have the largest dry blending facility in Europe, which is fully integrated with the main facility.
“Here in the UK, the recycled material is used in the thermal inserts, but the main profiles can include up to 50% recycled material.”
Like Deceuninck’s colour offering, Deceuninck is banking on sustainability being a big influence on sales, especially as 45,000 tonnes equates to three million windows diverted from landfill each year, reducing carbon emissions by 90,000 tonnes when compared to virgin feedstock, and promising an energy saving of 90%.
“This, coupled with some exciting product developments in the pipeline, should give our customers a massive advantage as we start to return to normal,” Rob said.
“As a result, we are on target to grow the business in the UK by a fifth over the next couple of years, seeing turnover exceed £60 million.”