Market Analysis of non-structural chemical products within the Green Building trend

Abstract

Green Building is a growing trend within the construction industry. HILTI AG, International Company that provides tools and consumables to the Construction Industry, and more concretely Business Unit Chemicals, noticed it from customers asking for information to get a Green Building Certification. Taking it as starting point, it has been developed the current Master Thesis with the aim to describe the Green Building Market in United States and Canada (the biggest markets) in order to know the business opportunities for HILTI Firestop Products and calculate the economic viability and benefit of positioning some products as Green. A study has been developed in order to understand better what Green Building means for customers in United States and Canada. The research process started with a definition of benefits, future trends and main “Green Certifications” for products within the construction industry (Chapter 4). Furthermore, information has been gathered from the field interviewing Product Managers from the Market Organizations and asking a questionnaire to customers and potential customers. In Chapter 5 the results are shown, it can be clearly seen that the growing importance of Green Building with LEED as the certification on top of mind. Moreover, it is important to consider what competitors and other companies are doing to detect weaknesses and learn from them. In Chapter 7 it has been developed a SWOT analysis for HILTI and its main competitors and a Gap Map Positioning for 5 selected HILTI Firestop products (Sealants and Spray) in comparison with the correspondent competitors’ products. Chapter 8 presents best practices from other companies within the construction industry and Chapter 9 shows a list of Chemical products from HILTI and main competitors that could potentially become band and be an opportunity to displace competition. Finally and considering all the information gathered in the previous chapters, it is presented a Strategy to penetrate the Green Building Market working with specifiers and having a product portfolio better positioned regarding Sustainable Construction, what would represent 1.25% growth. In Chapter 10 it is presented a Gantt Diagram and a Balanced Scorecard to track the success of the implementation. Finally, the Economical Evaluation is done in Chapter 11, presenting a good investment opportunity with an NPV, 5 years later, of 282.254 CHF. Also, several scenarios are plotted to see the final results under the best and worst circumstances.