Insight

A review and preview of the global fastener market

Named after the Roman god who is often depicted as having two faces – due to its ability to look to the future and to the past – the Janus Perspective is a unique feature that includes a wide cross section of global fastener business leaders, who have all contributed their retrospective of 2019 and thoughts on prospects and challenges for 2020.

Klaus-Dieter Schmidt, CEO

In recent years the fastener field was pampered by a good economic cycle, both in Germany and worldwide, profiting from increasing turnover. The peak of this development was for sure 2018. At REYHER during this year the export business grew in significant double-digits.

During this period the decisive decision making criteria for customer purchases was not the price of the product, but the availability – one of REYHER’s strengths. To continue building up and strengthening our export activities, in November our longstanding export manager Michael Martsch was appointed as vice-president.

It was to be expected that after these years, bearing the hallmark of high growth, there would come a time when a downturn would once again follow. Not only the German, but many European national economies cooled down noticeably in 2019. This has affected our company too. However, we have succeeded in achieving similarly high turnover to the previous year. One reason for this is certainly our very wide ranging customer base spread over many fields of business.

When we consider 2019, many economists are speaking only of a downturn, not a recession. At the same time, they are forecasting a renewed increase in gross domestic product for Germany from the current 0.5% to 1.1% in 2020 and even 1.5% in 2021. In the same period, the world economy should grow by 3% to 3.4%.

This is one of the reasons why we look positively into the future. In 2019, we have additionally addressed new target groups and have been able to gain new customers, especially in specialised business to business trades. In the coming year we shall build on this.

At the start of 2020, we shall be issuing our new product catalogue containing more than 84,000 stock products. Thanks to our diversity of articles, coupled with our high delivery performance, we are a reliable partner for our customers. As a well placed wholesaler with a wide product range and high availability, we are profiting from our industrial customers, and in the meantime our trade customers too, who are increasingly turning to digitalisation to reduce costs. Customers expect fast, lean and error-free processes and that simple repetitive business processes such as enquiries, orders, order confirmation, despatch notes, etc, can be handled digitally and automated. For a number of years, REYHER has had its own department manned by competent specialists to provide customised electronic connection with our customers.

Despite all the positive forecasts, as always, we naturally have to keep our eye on global political developments, since these will as ever have a not inconsiderable impact on the procurement market, especially in Asia.