“It is very clear,” says Arnoud Fiolet, a well-known and respected synthetic turf professional, “that our industry is presently in turmoil; the demand for sports products is noticeably down in key European countries such as Spain, Holland, Germany and Poland, and many others now work with reduced government budgets.
“It is also apparent that the landscape sector does not have the potential to make up for the loss in volume, although almost all of the major carpet manufacturers seem to see this as a way of redressing the balance.”
The buzz-word at present seems to be “vertical integration”, with several organisations each playing a major role; this means economies of scale will soon become a major issue.
Yet the end user still cannot see any noticeable difference between the types of grass available and it would appear that our industry has yet to find a way to clearly differentiate between the various company products, with serious price pressure emerging as a result.
The excessive supply into the market will therefore require new strategies and new sales and distribution concepts to make the market work.
The European Turf Group has been formed by Arnoud Fiolet, himself with many years of experience in the sector, as an independent networking company, to operate within the industry by bringing various suppliers together to do business and, through our many contacts, offer ease of access to a wider European and Global sales & distribution network.
So manufacturing companies that want to either dispose of their excess production capacity or introduce new products in the market place can easily work with others to find the opportunity to do so.
Most of the Group affiliates have over 10 years of management experience, and are able to see beyond simply a “quick sale”.
“We offer consultancy and, if required, a variety of sales and marketing services to those who actively want to work within these new market conditions. Indeed, we believe that most companies will soon need to consider entering a new market segment simply to maintain their current position, and to do this well there is now a real need to develop a deeper in-house knowledge of the industry and base their forward strategy on that.
“We believe that the time is now right for the European Turf Group, based on its extensive experience and knowledge of the industry, to play a significant role in the future growth of the synthetic turf market,” says Arnoud.
“We have already started to do this by taking on the consultancy and business development of the Ultra Base Systems as the revolutionary new base performance structures (not a shockpad!) in Europe. This new way of installing of synthetic turf will, in our view, completely change the industry and the future of pitch construction, and offer considerable cost, environmental and direct labour savings over the more traditional methods.
“We are on Twitter, as EuropeanTurf, and also have a discussion group on Linked-in and actively welcome your comments, suggestions and ideas as we move forward together to the next stage of our industry.”
European Turf Group www.europeanturfgroup.com