Insight

Welcome to the 2024 Janus Perspective, a unique feature that includes a wide cross section of global fastener business leaders. Named after the Roman God 'Janus' – who had the ability to look to the future and to the past, and was often depicted with having two faces – this feature brings together thought leaders from every facet of the industry, from around the world, to give us their retrospective on 2023, as well as prospects and challenges for 2024.

Achim Carstanjen, general manager

HECO looks back on a very eventful year in 2023, although well-known geopolitical and economic policy developments did have an impact on our business activities. As expected at the end of 2022, global supply chains stabilised and returned to normality, but at the same time, the economic conditions have changed, particularly in Germany.

These changes within the economic conditions did have consequences for the construction sector. Instead of a further dynamic market with high growth rates, as in previous years, we saw a stagnating or rather shrinking market in Germany at the end of 2023. The same observation counts for our overall European markets.

These effects naturally lead to special challenges for our company, with 2023 extremely unsteady. In the Covid-19 years of 2020 to 2022, the issue of supply assurance was the top criterion for our customers – with warehouses sometimes filled excessively for safety reasons, which lead to the well-known ‘bullwhip effect’ occuring. As a local producer, we at HECO were always able to fulfill our delivery promises despite the adverse circumstances. 

Today our customers are cautious and hesitant in terms of their planning and ordering. Availability of goods has once again become a matter of course in our markets. For this reason, other aspects such as quality, innovative strength and customer service are back in focus. That’s good for HECO because these values are the embodiment of the HECO brand and our strength. We assume that these aspects will play the dominant role for us again in the future. Finally, we can be happy with how 2023 turned out to our satisfaction. We have continued to grow moderately and thus have a solid financial basis. 

In addition to the above mentioned aspects of quality, innovation and service, we believe that additional topics are getting more and more important. Worldwide, the issue of climate and sustainability is constantly receiving greater attention. For HECO, the issue of the environment, as well as safety and health of employees, has always been a matter of course and taken into account. At the same time, we are noticing that our customers are increasingly interested in products that are produced in a way that conserves resources and is environmentally friendly. At HECO we will respond to this request for further information in the future and provide regular updates about our activities. The most recent examples are the expansion of our own energy production and e-mobility, which are also clearly visible for visitors at the plant and online on our new website. 

As a family business, we have always taken social responsibility for our employees and the region. In this context, last year we took the opportunity to reformulate our mission statement, which describes our corporate culture which we call ‘Our drive’. Our vision: ‘Creating enthusiasm with connections’ expresses what we work on and what we aim for, which is to inspire our customers and create enthusiasm for our products and services. We are also well aware that our HECO team, and every single colleague, is the heart of our success. 

Not only that, but now that the supply chain has normalised again, we see great advantages in producing in Germany and the EU. The distances to our customers are short in every respect. This means we save significant CO₂ compared to many competitors, due to the short distances, and we are able to communicate quickly and offer, and implement, solutions to our customers’ problems in a timely manner. We assume that despite the current disadvantageous cost position, manufacturing in Germany will offer many advantages in the
mid-term. Just one example with long-term effects for our business is the conversion of European steelworks to carbon neutral energy sources. Overall, the energy and CO₂ balance will be very attractive for European suppliers and will be difficult to beat by imported products.

We are also well positioned with our standard product range. In timber construction, we at HECO have been leading for decades with our partner SFS. The segment is very attractive, especially since a bright future is predicted for timber construction. However, we notice that in many places people still think traditionally and in terms of wooden construction solutions not yet being widespread, even if the number of projects is constantly increasing. Today, and for the next few years, we would like to see more political support for timber construction, thereby initiating and accelerating the rethinking process among many builders and architects.

The topic of digitalisation also continues to be a major challenge for us, especially as a mid-sized company based in the high-tech region of the Black Forest – it is difficult to find adequate talent. We experience that at first glance, the product screw doesn’t seem sexy enough to many, but at second glance many are enthusiastic – excited about processes, about products, about their responsibility, and about the teamwork in the ‘orange team’. In this sense, we also see the future positively in the topic of digitalsation, which is visible on our new website, despite all the adversities.