Surprisingly many companies in our industry do not fully realize this. They keep relying on the recipes of the past, with a decision-making process based on internal data and narrow intelligence sources. This often leads to dreadful consequences: resources and efforts poorly allocated, shrinking sales, margin attrition, clumsy investment decisions, crashing business models… all unfortunately easy to spot all over our industry.

The mandate of MFN is hence to be an eye opener, to stimulate the creative thinking of all industry players, and to provide practical and useful tools to tackle the Global Economy. Consequently, we are distributing the 3rd edition of the Metallic Abrasives Industry Global Study, as a business intelligence tool for our readers.

This study comprehensively analyses the 2011 blasting market from several angles: marketing and industrial, from penetrating and well-documented insights; and strategic, from a shareholder point of view aiming at protecting the value and profitability of his assets.

This study scrutinizes the technical issues from both abrasive and machine stand points, which has never been done before: for example, it precisely measures - for the first time - how the increased productivity and performance of new blasting machines reduces the consumption of metallic abrasives; furthermore, it explains why about two-thirds of the German foundries usage is low carbon shot and cut wire pellets, and the far-reaching consequences this has for blasting machine manufacturers and metallic abrasive producers.

Why is this an important intelligence tool?
The end-users of metallic abrasives will greatly enhance their bargaining position following dramatic legal developments in Europe; the distributors of blasting media will clearly discover how to take advantage of the new supply order which is hence emerging; manufacturers of blasting machine will correlate their parts sales with abrasives consumption and precisely focus in selling new machines where applications and market grow; while abrasives producers may gauge their decisions to invest with genuine market trends and competitive situations, etc.

In a volatile and unstable world, seeing better and further, deciphering the complexity of the environment, making sharper decisions and acting before competition, translates into competitive advantages.

The 3rd edition of the Metallic Abrasives Industry Study is highly useful to protect and grow one's business, resolvedly taking advantage of the opportunities of the global economy.

Best Regards
Andrzej Wojtas (Ph.D.), Chief Editor of MFN, E-mail: andrzej@mfn.li

Author: Andrzej Wojtas