Engineering is a large and multi-disciplinary sector. In fact it’s bigger than that. Engineering is a mindset. More fundamentally, engineering is about creativity.
That’s why at BDB, we love working with companies that create innovative solutions that provide genuine benefits to the people that use them – whether it’s valves being installed in subsea oil extraction pipelines and power stations, cutting edge packaging equipment speeding up food production lines around the world, microscopic testing equipment used in laboratories or premium construction products being used in civil infrastructure projects.
Facing up to big challenges
Engineering is high risk and often demands high upfront capital investment against a long gestation period to return. Growth of 4% year on year is forecast globally, but this is down on previous years, perhaps inevitably because of the prolonged global economic downturn.
We see companies operating in engineering sectors facing a multitude of challenges. Innovation is the key to delivering products and services that deliver against customer needs. Above all, products need to be fit for purpose, so performance, durability and adaptability are critical in most markets. This has a knock on effect to the time frame of getting products to market, and the finance required to make it happen.
In some markets, especially in the UK, there are also challenges in minimising skills gaps and retaining graduates and apprentices within businesses over the long term.
Fortunately, there are opportunity sectors and opportunity markets that are leading in engineering. These include pharmaceutical and biotechnology, automotive, aerospace, oil and gas and renewable energy with countries including Germany, Brazil, Russia, China and India as the best prospects for growth.
Achieving stand out in engineering
From a marketing perspective, we see engineering companies that position products and services on ‘through life cost and performance benefits’ as the most likely to succeed in this space. Demonstrating how products can out-perform their competitors, minimise waste, reduce footprint, work longer and harder without the need for maintenance, and so reducing downtime, are all tangible ways of adding value and safeguarding R&D investment in engineering innovation.
Talk to us today about how to unlock the added value story in your engineering process.
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