The Future Pipe Group is headquartered in the Netherlands and is actually a consortium of existing construction pipe and tube manufacturers and resellers, the oldest of which was founded in 1973. The companies in the group are: Gulf Eternit Industries Co. Ltd.; Gulf Eternit Trading Co.; Future Pipe Industries BV (formerly Wavin Repox BV); Emirates Pipe Industries Factory L.L.C.; Future Pipe Industries Co. S.A.L.; Ameron Gulf Ltd. (AGL); Dynaflow International; and, Future Plastrex (Future Pipe, Online).
As elsewhere in the world, the construction pipe industry is a competitive subset of the highly competitive construction industry. The companies involved in Future Pipe have a sizable market penetration in the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East and is beginning to develop inroads into the North American construction market.
A study of TubeNet, the industry business-to-business site, there are numerous competitors working the same side of the street as Future Pipe. Judging from the information presented concerning these companies, the primary competitive issues are cost, service, reliability, and reputation. Since the company has traditionally relied on the municipal and construction industries in any market, rather than a more consumer oriented market, the company has a low user profile.
An internal company report on Future Pipe detailed the competitive status for 1998-1999 and showed the following ranks (in Dutch Florens).
This suggests that the key to survival in the industry is becoming very efficient and effective. A rule of thumb is that if you have a new product you buy for 80 cents and sell for a dollar, that's not a bad product, so margins are thin. Likewise, if a company turns its pipe inventory six times, it has on average a two-month inventory in stock. If the market price (your resale price) drops 10 percent in that period and it is two months until the company can replace that material, that 10 pe...