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 2021 and thoughts on prospects and challenges for 2022.

Achim Carstanjen, general manager

Looking back, 2021 was a very challenging one for HECO. It began with the European Covid-19 lockdown with all its restrictions for our customers and our team. Despite all the difficulties in supply of raw materials; restrictive visits to our customers; and a new way of work – including separation of shifts in our plants; HECO mastered these challenges in an excellent way thanks to a great team.

Today we are looking back on a very successful year, both economically and technically. 2021 was a year of uncertainty for all of us, with supply problems and a price rally on the purchase markets, which all of us faced. Even under these conditions HECO could prove its reliability and service towards our customers. In total we received good feedback from our partners in terms of delivery service and flexibility.

We find ourselves confirmed in our strategy – being a local producer with extensive depth of production in all our plants. Last but not least, we are very proud of what we have achieved under the mentioned conditions, including the product launch of our two main product lines, Multi-Monti-plus Inox for masonry and concrete applications, as well as HECO-TOPIX-plus for wood applications – both representing much more than 50% of our business. Furthermore, we took over the complete timberwork range from our partner SFS, which we now offer in Germany under the HECO brand. These changes and amendments now allow us to provide the complete service package and, I guess, the most sophisticated product range for wood applications by HECO – facilitating logistics and technical support to our customers and end-users.

Looking into the future, I think we are now observing the initial point of a decade of uncertainty, which will be less stable than the previous decade was. I do not want to summarise all the aspects of uncertainty each of us faced and experienced – especially this year. In spite of these conditions, HECO is looking optimistically into the future. In the past two years our team learned a lot and we are well prepared to adapt to new challenges. Having a look on our markets, in Germany and central Europe, we expect the wood building sector to grow constantly. The new German government will hopefully extend the regulations soon, referring to sustainable construction made of timber. Located in the Black Forest, our roots are in the heart of a wood region and in the heart of Europe. These are the best preconditions to serve our customers with products and services.

Globally I see continuing conflicts with high impact on trade and supply chains. The recent EU anti-dumping decision or the traceability of supply chains set into force by law are only two examples for fairness and reasonable regulations in a modern society. I predict that Europe, as one of the three world main markets, will find its own way to shape the future and come back to be a technology leader. Of course, this will only work with regulations and governmental programmes to accelerate the transformation, especially with regards to our environment. The actual transformation towards eMobility is one example for that. In the construction sector, we are more conservative. However, I am convinced that within a decade we will have new terms of construction in Europe, considering not only a contribution to an equilibrated CO2 balance, but giving space for new social encounters of the new generations. This demand may be fulfilled on one hand by sustainable construction of new buildings, e.g with wood or similar materials, or on the other hand by refurbishing and refitting of existing buildings – prolonging their lifetime or leading them to a new purpose.

Who will be closer to these questions of our future than innovative European experts and producers, organisations that are able to plan and to effect by giving solutions?

I am convinced that the objectives of our society will contribute to strengthen local European producers, offering answers and solutions to outstanding questions. This is not relevant to the fastener sector only. In my opinion, producers in Europe will only have the right to exist if they are innovative and close to their markets and customer needs.

Recently our team demonstrated that we are capable of realising projects even under adverse circumstances. HECO’s pipeline is full of ideas that may contribute to the transition in the building sector.

Due to being located in a high-tech region HECO is faced with various obstacles like finding suitable talent. Furthermore, digitalisation is a big challenge for a mid-sized company like us. Not only in cost, but also in time. On the other hand we offer a wide range of interesting jobs where people have the possibility to take over responsibility quickly and really ‘live’ the job. This is what HECO stands for: Making life easier with passion and enthusiasm – making the world a little bit more orange.