Marketing to house builders

With the public sector expected to account for nearly a quarter of all new homes, and the Construction Products Association forecasting 15 per cent growth, 2010 looks set to be a year of opportunity for those with a little savvy, argues CIMCIG's Chris Ashworth.

Having suffered a cataclysmic decline in housing output in 2008 and 2009 the Construction Products Association is forecasting a 15 per cent growth in 2010, a trend that will continue over the following years. Although this won't take us back to the levels of 2007, the housing sector is one of the few in construction offering fresh hope.

The market is now quite different from the past. We still have the private developers, although a number of the small and medium-size companies have gone, but the Homes & Communities Agency (HCA) has become a significant influence. In 2007 only 11 per cent of new housing starts were in public housing. In 2010 this is expected to rise to 24 per cent due to initiatives such as Kickstart and the Local Authority New Build programme (LANB), with many private developers now expecting a significant proportion of their work to come from the HCA. As a consequence homes will need to be built to at least Level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH). The HCA is encouraging the adoption of Level 4.

Research conducted by Competitive Advantage in 2009 showed that most private developers were not building to the CSH, unless it was for social housing, where they tended to build to the more easily achieved Level 3. Expect this to change, with increasing numbers of homes built to Level 4 or above. The revision of Document L of the Building Regulations, sometime in 2010, will also add to the pressure. Here lies the opportunity...

During the last two years the average house builder's priority has been survival. Many staff have been made redundant, including those with expertise in sustainability. As those same house builders now look to design homes to Level 4 they'll need help from manufacturers. If you can offer them products which can help them achieve Level 4 you'll be welcomed. But you will need to understand the nature and structure of their organisational hierarchy.

Within larger developers there will probably be three key decision makers you need to contact. The technical director will be responsible for standard designs. He'll brief the architect(s), and possibly sustainability consultant(s), on design requirements. You'll need to become a part of this team. You may be able to identify these organisations via project leads.

On a local level the construction director will be responsible for modification of (standard) designs to meet local planning requirements. He'll work with quantity surveyors, who will also act as project managers on site.

Once they have defined their requirements it's the responsibility of purchasing manager to translate them into purchasing decisions. Purchasing managers are often the principal contact for many manufacturers – and clearly they're important – but if you haven't been involved in the process leading up to their involvement you may have left it too late.

Smaller organisations are often easier to deal with as one or two people frequently fill all of these roles. There's also less competition as sales volumes are smaller. So why not target some of the design teams working within and for house builders with relevant CPD in 2010? Then build your relationships and start to specification-sell.

Author Chris Ashworth is a member of the organising committee of the Chartered Institute of Marketing's Construction Industry Group (CIMCIG) and founder of Competitive Advantage Consultancy.

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