Glass Expo Midwest™ ʼ18 Leaves Attendees with Tips for Growth

The glass and glazing industry is undergoing major changes, which were discussed in educational seminars at Glass Expo Midwest™ (GEMS) ʼ18 in Indianapolis last week.

Millennials

Seminars on Thursday afternoon provided tips on how to hire and sell to millennials from Glass.com® manager Daniel Snow and Casey Flores, account executive for Key Media & Research, parent company of USGlass magazine. Flores advised attendees to go where millennials are when looking to hire them, such as career fairs or popular job posting site Indeed.com. Snow said that social media interactions can help sell to millennials, who are likely to leave reviews for companies they value. However, he emphasized that millennials don’t like to be sold to, so more subtle or creative approaches are needed.

The Global Impact

“C-Suite Changes Coming in the Contract Glazing Industry” followed, led by Schüco USA president Attila Arian and Keytech North America president Lyle Hill.

Hill pointed out that there is a major influx of foreign manufacturers into the U.S., including European companies. Arian said that three big construction markets are showing growth potential globally: China, India and the U.S.

“If you’re a global company, where would you want to do business?” he asked the crowd.

Hill predicts that big companies in the U.S. will continue to grow larger, while small companies stay small and medium-sized companies share shrinks from encroachment by the large companies. European companies with high technology adoption provide further competition.

Arian said that the U.S. is far behind other global companies that show a correlation between revenue potential and technology adaptation.

They compared the U.S. to Germany. The U.S. has a higher cost of labor, lower fabrication capacity, bigger company sizes, fewer equipment, lower engineering capacity and much lower qualified personnel.

Hill and Arian also predict that major disruption could come to the industry, just as über’s business model changed the taxi industry by finding the shortest path between demand and supply. They said that developers could begin working with suppliers directly to purchase products so that subcontractors such as glazing contractors can’t sell products with an additional mark-up on larger jobs. They advised glazing contractors to become closer to the developer than simply focusing on the general contractor because the developer is the one making the decisions. Arian described the general contractors of today as often consultants to the owners rather than having a self-performing aspect.

The duo also said it wouldn’t be farfetched for companies such as Home Depot to sell standardized storefront, flipping the current supply chain around.

Cleaning and Maintenance

Paul Düffer, an authority on glass and glass cleaning who retired from PPG Industries’ research and development department, rounded out Thursday’s sessions with a seminar called “Challenges to Successful Cleaning & Maintenance of Glass Surfaces.” He gave best practices for cleaning and maintaining glass, which can be damaged by corrosion, concrete runoff, hard water deposits, storage issues and even construction-related debris.