When brands become one

What’s the primary driver behind two of the UK’s leading aluminium system brands, Technal and Sapa, joining forces to become one? Technal’s UK sales director Allan Barr discusses the beneficial impact this will have for fabricators and installers.

Essentially, this is about providing customers with one clear product range and service offer; however, all existing products from both Sapa and Technal are retained and available.

As most people will know, Sapa and Technal have been operating successfully as two separate brands for some time as part of Hydro Buildings Systems UK.

As a business focused on its customers, and the construction industry as a whole, concentrating investment into one single brand simplifies all aspects of our operations and unites the many synergies we have between both brands. Our One Vision strategy presents Technal as a stronger, more agile proposition for customers to do business with.

From design, specification and product testing, to project support, training and delivery, customers will see benefits at every stage and every point of contact.

For ease, the legacy Sapa product names will remain. They will simply be prefixed Technal, for example, Technal Elegance 52.

This united ‘one offer’ range of curtain walling, windows and doors, as well as specialist solutions for fire, blast and bullet resistance, gives customers access to a complementary and expanded product offer, adapted to UK requirements and legislation.

The simplification of the stock management system, in line with the one product offering, speeds up order entry and acknowledgement. And the simplified stock groupings allow clearer communication of product lead times across the whole range.

From a design perspective, there will be ‘one software solution’ that offers the best tools available, tools that go beyond simple CAD, or machine preps for fabrication.

Giving customers a more innovative and integrated approach, TechDesign allows thermal performance calculations on all designs. It will align directly with a new order entry system and integrate with our BIM-friendly project visualisation software, Tech3D.

Another software innovation is TechAcoustic, which is capable of predicting the acoustic performance of a window based upon the design characteristics alone.

Customer service and distribution are now all based at the Tewkesbury site, managed by one team.

Operating across our Tewkesbury site and new Wakefield sales office, technical enquiries for all Technal and legacy Sapa products will be handled by a dedicated product support team, backed by our team of experienced field support engineers.

Product and customer software training will be provided, classroom-style, at Tewkesbury, the new Wakefield sales office, or at our London office on Store Street. Practical fabrication training will be delivered by the field support engineers, usually at our customers’ premises providing the conditions are suitable.

Regarding new product developments, we’re pushing the boundaries in terms of low carbon aluminium solutions to help customers achieve building sustainability specification requirements.

You’ll be seeing Technal introduce Hydro Circal 75R, premium quality aluminium with a minimum of 75% post-consumer scrap from demolition, restoration or transformation building projects. All remaining systems will be manufactured from low CO2 primary aluminium thanks to Hydro’s access to renewable energy sources such as hydro-electric power.

It’s this innovative approach to product development, coupled with the new Technal one offer, one team, one brand, that will help us better serve our customers, and contribute to a stronger, more successful supply chain.