Have you recently told your employees that they are your "most valuable asset" and yet you are cutting their jobs, eroding their benefits and offering miniscule opportunities for career growth? Does your particular company have a qualified, effective "mentoring" program for each and every employee? Are you providing employees with company paid training opportunities so that they can grow their skills and talents? Are you setting the stage for a series of damaging expectations to ferment within the minds of employees? How long does the average employee remain with your company before they feel compelled to seek out "greener pastures"? Do your employees enjoy multiple reinforcing components of their compensation and benefits packages? Are you paying employees a cost of living increase plus a performance-based incentive? Do your employees get a "year end bonus" if the company performs well on the bottom-line? Are you providing employees with stock options and comprehensive medical, Rx and dental benefits? Is your company in an employee reduction mode or growth state? Are you hiring or firing? Has employee loyalty declined over the past few months or years? Why so...

How healthy is your company in the currently depressed and grim complexity of the global economy? How many employees have you already cut from the payroll? Have you sternly requested that all your employees and managers reduce or cease participation in third party training programs, expensive trade shows or exhibitions, costly golf outings, extravagant customer entertainment events and capital intensive lab and plant equipment purchases? How much longer will your company be able to survive inflated raw material prices, rising healthcare costs, surging energy bills and skyrocketing transportation fees? Are your customers happy with all those price increases that you have attempted over the past few months? How many formerly loyal customers has your company lost due to rising prices over the past few months? Are your customers optimistic, pessimistic or neutral regarding the financial success state of their business during the unfolding recessionary period...

How much does your CEO pull down on an annual basis? What are the various components of the CEO compensation formula? Could it be that your CEO is overpaid or underpaid? Who sets the pay scale for the CEO of your enterprise, the Board of Directors or your stockholders or an independent third party? Does your CEO undergo a job performance assessment each quarter and each year prior to the adjustment of his/her annual compensation package? What specific criteria are utilized to judge the performance level of your CEO and other Senior Managers? Is the CEO paid the same amount whether the company turns a huge profit or is bleeding red ink? Is there a scarcity of people who hold the proper credentials to lead a company down a successful path? Surely not! Are the stockholders of your company demanding the CEO receive a substantial pay cut if the financial performance of the company is extremely poor...

If an "actual" contraction is less than the "forecasted" contraction, one might choose to label the phenomenon as an "optimistic contraction"? Hum, interesting political spin on a set of economic conditions that are slowly sliding into a very deep recession pit while the world watches? And whether one sees the economic glass of water as half-full or half-empty, the water in the glass may ultimately deliver a tainted, bitter taste to the thirsty recipient. Scan the economic horizons these days and you'll see an abundance of job layoffs across diverse manufacturing and service industries, rampant inflation in food prices, rising fuel and health care costs and a USA GDP rate adorned with a receding hairline. The consumer spending patterns in the USA have no doubt stalled, except for the costly necessities of life. Consumers are growing more uneasy with the failing health of financial institutions, the declining value of their home investments and the deep pocketbook sinkhole aggravated by greedy gasoline prices. What definitive, positive actions is your company pursuing to ease the escalating anxiety levels of the shell-shocked consumer in the USA? Do you believe in "optimistic contractions" of the economic environment? And how does the water in the glass taste to you on a hot, thirsty afternoon? What steps are you taking to safeguard the profits of your enterprise from the dangers lurking in the deep, dark recession pit...

Has your company unfortunately missed the nano-wagon? Has the nano-train already left the station and you're not on it? Do you remember the Leadership Team Meeting where the Business Strategist advised, "Nanotechnology is a potential, lucrative, high growth" market." And to quench the momentary excitement was quickly followed by a stern statement from the Technology Director, "Nanotechnology will never amount to anything substantial." Sound familiar? What is the proven qualitative and quantitative value of nanotechnology in global, regional and local markets? Who is willing to pay for such a "small" thing and how much are they willing to pay? To what degree is nanotechnology generating sales revenues and profits across global markets and for whom? Where are today's and tomorrow's profit centers for evolving nanotechnology located? Does your company have an abundance of firmly entrenched "nano naysayers" or are you joyfully positioning your enterprise for success in multiple nanotechnology dimensions? How much is "small" worth to the large world of potentially profitable buyers...

What actions are you taking to create and maintain "profit-generating" buyers for your products, services, solutions and for your company stock? Are you planning on selling your enterprise or a part of your enterprise at some point in the near or distant future? How is your leadership team daily demonstrating the value of your company's value delivery systems? Do the members of your company fully understand and clearly communicate the enterprise's value proposition to the marketplace? Are you creating buyers in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the business world? Do your sales and technical service personnel possess and deliver an articulate picture of customer need "voids"? Does your business maintain an integrated set of synergistic value delivery systems that facilitate the value proposition of the holistic enterprise? In order to sell your products, services, solutions, your company stock and/or your business model, you must be creating "profit-generating" buyers on a daily, ongoing basis...

Who inside your company is monitoring and interpreting the Federal Register's evolving rules on air pollutant emissions? Does your enterprise have an executable, cost-effective plan for regulatory compliance? How will the "National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Paint Stripping and Miscellaneous Surface Coating Operations at Area Sources" impact your particular business path? And when is a rule a "final" rule when it comes to government regulations? Hum...

What motives are driving your acquisition attempts? What tactical and strategic factors does your leadership consider and analyze before attempting to acquire a target company? Are you seeking to grow top-line revenue and bottom-line profits? Does your enterprise desire to strengthen its geographic positioning across the globe? Is your company seeking to enter a new market segment? Do you desire to add a new technology dimension to the business? How compatible are the cultures of any acquired companies? What will be the ultimate impact of each and every acquisition on your sustainability objectives, financial margins and profitable growth goals...

When one examines carefully the U.S. economic signals of the present time mostly "down abounds"! Single-family home sales continue to slow marking the slowest pace in 13 years. January 2008 new single family home sales dropped 2.8% from December 2007 and 33.9% below the January 2007 levels per the Department of Commerce's February 27 report. The seasonally adjusted rate for new single family home sales was pegged at 588,000 units...

Successful companies usually have a comprehensive, multi-dimensional, yet cost-effective plan, to "advance their cause" in competitive environments! Would you classify your company as "passive" or "proactive" in the business world...

What's in a name or a brand? What is an acceptable lifetime for a brand? What are the pros and cons of changing brands in mid-stream? How can brands be used to positively spin the value proposition of the event or product in question? Does your company or organization have a proven, well-defined and documented process for the "branding" of products, services, solutions and industry events? For example, what images are conjured up when the words "American Coatings Show & Conference" or "BASF Color Solutions" roll off the tongue or excite the eye? How much deep thought, creative effort and strategic planning goes into branding trade shows or restructured businesses? Are creative, meaningful, impactful names a vital part of both the short-term and long-term strategy for the enterprise? Do the visible labels attached to trade shows, events, expos, conferences, training, and business units create the desired corporate image in the marketplace...

What are the criteria for earning a job title of "vice-president" in your particular company? What criteria determine when an employee is assigned the vice-president crown? How many vice-presidents does your company have on the payroll? How many vice-presidents does your company really need to get the job done? Are there too many "chiefs" and not enough "warriors" in the organization? What are the job responsibilities of a vice-president level employee? Why during the past few years are so many companies proudly publicizing the number of vice-presidents that they have on their organizational charts? Has the vice-president level become so commonplace in the organizational structure that it now carries little lasting prestige for the holder...

What is the ultimate in luxury and convenience? Would you love to have "powered drawers" that open automatically with a light touch of the human hand? It's one of the evolving trends in the evolving furniture industry. The IMM Cologne furniture fair drew 107,000 visitors from 130 countries, up slightly from the 106,000 who attended the show in 2007. Of those, an estimated 31,000 were international visitors and another 21,000 were consumers who dropped in during the days the show was extended to the public. In the 2007 show report, officials estimated that 40% or 42,000 visitors were from abroad and 34,000 were consumers. The report did not specify how many international visitors were from the United States, but noted that more visitors came from the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, France and Switzerland. Also higher numbers were reported for attendance from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South America and Africa. The Jan 14-20, 2008 event drew 1,251 exhibitors from 53 countries, compared to 1,301 participating companies from 57 countries in 2007. Of the 2008 exhibitor pool, 428 were companies from Germany and 823 were from abroad...

Who is teaming up with whom in the world and why? Has your business enterprise discovered how to conduct profitable collaborative efforts with complementary partners across the global landscape in an efficient and cost-effective manner? How can you profitably grow your business when you "team up" with a compatible complementor in an opportunity rich environment? Is your leadership team a group of eager team players or in the "go-it-alone" state of mind...

What do you get when you combine solvents (or water), additives, pigments, fillers, catalysts and resins at the appropriate ratios utilizing sequential, timed stages of addition and mixing? Hum, could it be profitable paint and/or coatings formulations for downstream clients? What totality of factors contributes to the success of a paint and coatings company? One of the foundational elements of the paint and coatings industry is the priceless, approved and proven "formula" book. Where would paint and coatings manufacturers turn if suddenly the "formulary" vanished from the laboratory shelves? Paint companies own literally thousands of archived and active formulations based on hundreds of raw materials, many of which are leveraged across multiple formulations...

Who's inventing the market, technology and manufacturing "solutions" that will generate the handsome profits of tomorrow? Are your business leaders able to recognize the signals that reveal the hidden opportunities for profitable customer-driven solutions? Is your leadership team customer or market centric or stuck in the traditional product or service centric rut of yesterday? Is it possible to "deliver solutions" in addition to "selling products and services" within the paint and coatings value system? Are paint and coatings companies leaving money on the financial table? What innovative companies are striving to "deliver coatings-related industry solutions" to downstream clients? How do companies identify "profitable solutions" that fill unmet customer needs across the paint and coatings industry? How successful are companies that shift their efforts from a product or service oriented business model to a "solution delivery" business model? What skills and talents does a company need to successfully complete a transition to a "solution delivery" business model? How can companies "leverage" their enterprise into a "solution delivery" profitable business model? Are paint and coatings manufacturers allowing their customers to develop their own solutions, why so? How can paint and coatings firms "step out" of tradition and into exceptional, profitable growth domains...

Are you tracking success and failures for your company? How do you determine what constitutes a "success" and what constitutes a "failure"? What metrics is your enterprise utilizing to efficiently and effectively monitor business progress in a meaningful fashion? What is the success to failure performance ratio for each of your business units as well as for the holistic enterprise? How are you managing the failures and rewarding the successes? Who bears the major responsibility for each success and each failure? What positive or negative consequences are associated with each success and/or each failure that occurs...

How "in tune" are you with your customer's desires and preferences on a host of topics? How frequently do you visit with critical customers and what consistent and relevant questions are you asking while visiting with each of them? Who are the key decision makers at each customer account? How are you collecting, documenting, preserving, analyzing and applying the vast number of customer responses that you are receiving? In what manner are your customers "segmented" and what is the rationale for the chosen segmentation patterns? And likewise, how "in tune" are the personnel within your enterprise with supplier, competitor, collaborator, partner and complementor interfaces...

Christmas 2007 is now history. It's soon time to usher in a Happy New Year 2008. Another year past and what have you and your business accomplished? Yes, it's that dreaded or delightful time for writing major accomplishments for yourself, for the department, for the business team and for the corporate enterprise. Remember "activities" are not all "major accomplishments", unless those activities have generated "major financial or non-financial results" to substantially advance the health and/or success of the business, both the top-line and bottom-line dimensions. Well-written major accomplishments usually take the form of "X was completed because of Y and resulted in Z for the business", where X= the activity, Y= the reason or driver and Z= the favorable result. Many employees, team leaders, department heads, business managers and CEOs spend an excess of their valuable time on activities or busy work that actually results in little to no advancement of the business financials, image, brand or growth in the local, regional, national or global markets...

Christmas 2007 has almost arrived on the scene? How much are you spending on the glitter and the gifts for friends and family? Emptying all your personal and family budgets as quickly as possible? Told your spouse to spend everything before December 31 or else you won't give them money for next year's necessary expenses? During what months do you spend most of your personal income and why? Do you attempt to spend the entirety of your family budget before the year is over? Why not? Oh, saving something for next year, eh? Holding some cash in reserve, eh? During what quarterly periods do you spend the majority of your business budget? What percentage of your annual budget is spent during the final quarter of the fiscal or calendar year for the business...

Economic forecasts are a lot like the flashing lights on a Christmas tree, constantly shifting patterns with blended moments of light and darkness that are highly unpredictable. How skilled are your business leaders at predicting when the economic tree will slide into a dark state or emerge into sparkling brilliance? Great uncertainty resides in the outlook for the U.S. and other global economies. Analysts display a confusing range of pondered perspectives in their fickle fantasy forecasts for U.S. and other world economies. Two of the major impact factors are the depth and duration of the housing recession and the great unknowns of the credit crunch, particularly for the U.S. economy. When conditions are so fluid, it is difficult to make accurate forecasts. Considerable disparity exists among the economic forecasters, whether government, NGOs or private firms. Some would say that recent projections look "out of whack" for these "blended moments"...

What processes do color forecasters utilize to predict future trends in color preferences for fashions, home décor, furniture, automobiles and paint? How reliable are those color trend prediction processes? Are predictions based on historical color cycles, consumer mood, precise mathematical algorithms or soft qualitative factors? How many critical dimensions exist within the color trend prediction model? Who is routinely, systematically checking the accuracy of the color trend predictions? What combinations of factors in a culture drive color preferences and the timing of those preferences? Do color trend forecasters truly predict color preferences or simply create color preferences at the subconscious level in the mind of the manufacturer and consumer...

What variety of channels to market does your business model utilize? What are the pros, cons and challenges associated with each channel to market? What is the relative efficiency of each of the channels to market that you employ? What qualitative and quantitative value is each channel adding to your business units? How many customers utilize each channel that your business offers and why? What criteria did your company utilize to select the service providers for each channel in the portfolio? How much profit does each channel to market siphon off or add to your bottom-line? How do your downstream customers benefit from your particular channels to market portfolio composition? In what manner has your company leveraged channels to market to gain a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace? How frequently are you surveying the customer landscape to determine customer channel preferences and complaints...

Where are the lucrative geographic growth frontiers for the paint and coatings industry? Who are among the desirable acquisition targets within those growth frontiers? How do you determine which companies to purchase and how much they are worth? What are your "valuation criteria" for assessing companies present on your target acquisition list? What documented business processes does your enterprise systematically utilize at each stage during each and every acquisition activity? Do you have a comprehensive list of due diligence questions? Who manages and executes your acquisition and/or new business development processes? Are you utilizing qualified, independent thinking, third party companies to identify and acquire add-on companies? Is your firm considering expansion into the Indian paint market? What is the estimated size and growth rate of the domestic paint market in India and who are the key players on the scene...

Do you frequently attempt to communications with a person that just won't listen or sincerely consider sound advice designed to positively enhance their business and/or personal life experiences? Maybe you have a manager, colleague, friend or customer that continually rejects the majority of your wisdom. Could it be that you are a member of a distinguished team and the team leader turns a continual deaf ear to sage advice from the eager team members? Are your customers ignoring the valid value propositions offered by your enterprise's sales organization? Are potential collaborators, partners and complementors ignoring your opportunistic, synergistic-driven advances...

The investment community frequently wants to know your estimated growth numbers for sales income, expenses and profits as well as your company's strategic formula for sustainable success. How is your particular company planning to win in the competitive marketplace...

Are you closely watching the acquisition strategies of your customers, competitors, partners, collaborators and potential complementors? Which companies are your industry or sector adversaries collecting, when and why? Who serves as the outstanding benchmarks or as the "islands of excellence" within the paint and coatings industry and why? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each of the acquired companies with respect to target markets, technologies, geographic regions and business processes? How does each acquisition benefit the value delivery systems portfolio of the purchaser? How does the acquisition strengthen the purchaser's value proposition to downstream clients, partners, collaborators and complementors within the industry value system...

Are the employees, business units, manufacturing divisions, geographic locations and/or functional organizations within your corporate enterprise pulling in synergistic or antagonistic directions? To what degree are the elements of your business model and your value delivery systems unified and supportive toward executing the approved corporate strategy? Are you allowing each department to pursue their own agenda while passively watching failure of the holistic corporate objectives? Does the left hand truly know what the right hand is doing? Are your marketing, sales, business, technical, purchasing, manufacturing and supply chain organizations connected, communicating and in sync...

Are "youthful preferences" a marketing portal and staging platform to forthcoming "adult purchasing" patterns and behaviors? To what degree does your company understand the demographic profiles of targeted geographic regions? How are disposable income and spending patterns distributed across demographic age groups in various sectors of world markets? Who spends and who saves within the consumer population...

In the economic world there are pessimists and optimists and everything in between the two extremes. Where do your perspectives on the global economic trends fall? What industries will drive the forthcoming direction of your sales revenues, expenses and profit margins? Are your sales, marketing, business and technical personnel in sync, communicating and connected to the profitable growth frontiers of the global landscape? Where do your teams turn to gain insights into emerging economic outlook...

A profitable legacy product's sales volumes begin to slide downhill and an eager innovation employee in the company champions the product's replacement candidates…then what happens? Imagine that the technology group in your company desires to introduce a new product to the market, but the leader of the business unit says "no, it will cannibalize the sales of a profitable legacy product that continues in the short-term to be very successful with customers". Or maybe a set of loyal, but obstinate customers, refuse to purchase a step-change or long-time unsuccessful heritage product that an enthusiastic product steward in your company believes should sell due to its inherent value...

How is your business leveraging governmental resources and legislation on a daily basis? Does your enterprise view the federal, state and/or local government as foe or ally when it comes to executing day-to-day or long-term strategic growth plans? How much time are your leadership and management personnel spending constructing and maintaining personal and business relationships with legislators in various parts of the world...

What is on the mind of the consumer when they walk into that retail paint store to purchase their next gallon of paint? What factors is the consumer considering as they scan the crowded, confusing paint brands displayed in the aisles of Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Lowe's stores...

What is the degree of "mindset congruency" between your company and other critical players in your value system? Is your "mindset" fact or fiction? What evidence supports that your "mindset" will lead to profitable financials and a long-term, sustainable competitive position with the consumer landscape in the chosen marketplace...

What actions is the leadership team pursuing to identify the changing values, attitudes and profitable opportunities behind each of the mega-trends operative across Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia-Pacific...

Who knows what regarding your company's strategy? Does your company have a well-documented strategy that is deeply understood by each and every employee, particularly the elements that each employee or group of employees is expected to execute? Is your leadership team monitoring the complex and shifting strategies of customers, competitors, complementors and business partners on a consistent, ongoing basis...

How is your firm monitoring the hoard of competitive threats? What are the various key categories of competitive threats to a business enterprise? Where are the most dangerous, high impact competitive threats lurking in the deep, dark shadows of the market? What are disruptive technology threats, who generates them and how do they impact your business...

Where did all the time go? Why are busy Americans and other consumers so short on time? Are there business opportunities emerging from the prevalent scarcity of time...

What recent changes has the IMF (International Monetary Fund) predicted for world economies? How many of your company's value delivery systems are situated in each geographic region of the world...

Are you daily pondering how to expand or enhance the enterprise's value delivery systems and achieve timely, profitable growth for the business? How well do you comprehend the diverse elements of your value delivery systems and their respective margin contributions...

Is your firm formulating and delivering profitable coatings "solutions" to clients in the cell or mobile phone industry? Who's the claimed market leader in cell phone technology and sales? Which cell phone styles and manufacturers are gaining or losing market share...

What are the dynamics of the construction industry in the USA, China, Middle East, Australia, India and Canada? Is the growth in the residential or non-residential segments...

What fraction of your product or technology portfolio delivers unique specialty, high performance benefits to downstream customers? Are you capturing the deserved and anticipated level of unit value for each of the products...

What is the health or condition of the USA economy? Where are key economic indicators pointing? What is the short-term outlook? What economic indicators are your business leaders watching on a regular basis...

How well do you understand the demographic trends and behaviors of geographic, cultural and customer clusters? How will cultural preferences and traditional behaviors impact top-line revenue streams and bottom-line profit pictures of your business model...

Competitive technologies originate from a myriad of strange places and for a host of market-driven reasons. Competitive technology may be direct, indirect or horizon in nature...

How well focused is your company's R&D effort? How are you judging the performance of the enterprise's R&D programs and personnel...

Singapore appears destined to perform as strong growth center within the world economy. What is the current state of the economy in Singapore? Is Singapore a favorable site for long-term capital investments...

What changes and linked product opportunities are anticipated for the developing home environment of 2007? How might shifting consumer preferences and desires impact the product/service mix of your business...

What secrets does the European growth radar reveal regarding the health of the economy for 2007 and 2008? What assumptions reside beneath any growth optimism...

How does the existence of a "complex product mix" within a business translate into a "profitable business opportunity"? What are the critical elements of a successful business model...

DuPont's first-quarter earnings rocketed 16 percent, assisted by higher seed sales and improved pharmaceuticals income. The company achieved net income of $945 million (11.6% of total sales), or $1.01 per share, up from $817 million, or 88 cents per share, in the first quarter of 2006...

What the heck is an "industry-based business model"? Why could such a business model be expected to improve performance and accelerate the growth of a company...

When the USA economy stumbles, the whole world experiences the fall, right? Apparently not! According to IMF analysis and perspectives, the global economy will most likely weather any slowdown in US economic growth because dependence on exports to America is declining in importance...

What can touch us, yet without any physical contact? What can make us feel warm, cool, relaxed or tense? What can convey spaciousness or confinement...

Watch the daily press releases and you will recognize many planned and/or executed business deals, but how many of those deals are ultimately successful for the business partners and the stakeholders? When a business deal is finally executed, many complex transformations must occur in a timely fashion for the deal to add true value to partners, financial stakeholders, complementors and customers...

The Earth is estimated to weigh in at 5.972 sextillion (5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000) metric tons. On the other end of the size spectrum, consider the future existence of virus-assembled, nanotechnology-based batteries in the form of thin, transparent sheets that look like plastic wrap...

How can one keep a family-owned business healthy and growing in the fast-paced economic environment of today? What types of investments make profitable sense for the business...

What role are complementors playing in your business strategy? What level of top-line and bottom-line profits are complementors delivering as they serve the stakeholder population? What is your margin outlook for 2007...

Is your business model local, regional or global? How deeply do you understand the impact of shifting economic conditions on the current and future state of your business success? When is the last time that you took an economic stroll and discussed the findings with the members of your management team...

Under what rocks are corporate profit opportunities hiding? If the USA economic growth rates are predicted to slow during 2007 due to a continued weakness in housing, where will CEOs turn to achieve profit goals for stakeholders...

What is happening in the earnings gallery? Who's achieving success in the financial dimension? How did 2006 compare with 2005...

What industry and market trends are you monitoring daily and why? How well do you understand the linkage between the industry or market trends and the top-line and bottom-line performance of your respective business models...

What methods does your company employ to develop the demand forecast for your products and/or services each year? Are you using (1) straight-line, fixed rate, (2) complex, multi-dimensional, (3) resource intensive, customer interactive, (4) single or multi-dimension, trend/driver linked, (5) industry growth associated, (6) industry expert modified, or (7) seat-of-the-pants algorithms...

Imagine yourself on an exciting journey from current state to future state of the business. All of sudden you find yourself surrounded by a circular, very tall, ominous wall...

How are you presently packaging the value delivered by your business enterprise? Are you generating value only to later give it away, free of charge? Does step-change value actually reside in the holistic package and not in the individual components of the package contents...

Are you looking for a dance partner for 2007 and beyond? Ford Motor Company recently renewed its long-time partnership with Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes Corp...

Imagine sitting inside a building that has no transparent windows or visible doorways to the outside world. What is happening outside at the moment? How is the weather, sunny or stormy...

As 2006 draws to a close, it is an appropriate time to take a look at a variety of perspectives active in the world’s business and economic sectors...

The effective and efficient execution of differentiated innovation processes creates a degree of sustainable differentiated bottom-line profits for business enterprises...

What is the health of the German chemical industry? What are the predicted trends for sales revenues and employment levels...

When company margins are pinched does your company slide quickly into the cost-cutting mode? Are you repeatedly attempting to save your way to higher margins? Are you hoping that by reducing costs, your company can return to prosperity...

What do the prevailing signals say regarding current and future business conditions? What signals have your undivided attention each and every day? How do you know if the monitored signals are closely linked to the performance level of your enterprise...

Strategic planning sessions normally include a phase during which the leadership team must generate and select among a limited series of viable strategic options. How many strategic options are reasonable for the business to consider...

How often are you leveraging your competitors across your business model? Who are your direct, indirect and horizon competitors? What are your competitors doing and when and why and how...

ICI makes paints, including the Dulux brand and specialty chemicals, and reported that adjusted net profit for the third quarter was 111 million pounds (US$211.8 million; euro166 million), up from 93 million pounds during Q3 2005...

What would you say is the core, most important element of your business model? An interesting question, eh? Find yourself struggling for a meaningful response to the question...

Most coil coaters are large consumers of natural gas. One exception is the coaters who use water base coatings and find electrical IR ovens quite effective for their purposes...

It is some three years since we last profiled the largest paint and coatings manufacturers in the world. During the prior five year period we progressed steadily from covering the 50 largest companies to eventually the 100 largest...

Who were the world's leaders based on top-line sale revenue in paints, coatings, adhesives, sealants and related products during 2005? Five of the leaders were headquartered in the USA, two in Germany, one in UK and two in the Netherlands...

When is the last time that you conducted a thorough and informative customer satisfaction survey across your customer population? Are you asking relevant questions? Are you sampling the critical customer targets across multiple decision-maker contact points...

When volume is low, demand niche-limited, pricing level high and profit margin exceptional does that signal that a company has a specialty or high performance product...

So where is all the nanotechnology taking up residence in world markets? How about (1) a washing machine that sanitizes clothes with billions of tiny silver ions, (2) sunscreen and cosmetics formulated with nano particles, (3) canola oil intended to block cholesterol, (4) the iPod Nano toy, (5) high performance tennis racquet composites, (6) socks that can keep you cool or warm, (7) high efficiency nutrient delivery systems and (8) packaging that can warn the consumer that the contents inside are potentially deadly...

Where are those profitable business opportunities in the paint and coatings industry hiding these days? Frequently business leaders spend the majority of their time seeking out the holy grail of growth and thus overlook the lucrative niches camouflaged within existing, more mature market sectors of the traditional paint and coatings segments...

When the USA or other major economies stall, so do many connected and dependent regional economies of the world. Collective opinions are painting a picture of a world economic slowdown during the next two years...

Have you carefully identified a targeted set of customers or are you randomly attempting to attract customers to your products and/or service offering with lackluster success...

The Mexican automotive industry growth is primarily driven by the top five foreign auto manufacturers in Mexico including General Motors, Ford Motor, DaimlerChrysler, Nissan and Volkswagen. Where is Honda and Toyota...

Why sell architectural paint at $12 to $25 per gallon when you can sell architectural paint at $50-60 per gallon in Canada? The manufacturer of C2 claims that nothing on the market can match its coverage ability, scrub ability and quality...

Many astute employees would voice that their respective CEOs are not exceptional in the listening department. Why not? Why are CEO's "great tellers", but often not open-minded listeners...

How does one pick the "write" paint? The humble pencil is the flagship product of the Faber Castell group, the world’s top producer of wood-cased pencils. More than 6,000 dealers and employees compose the Faber Castell Group of companies worldwide...

UBS analysts predict that global economic growth is likely to cool in 2007 and believe that growth is likely to decelerate to 3.5% in 2007, led by U.S. growth declining to 2.5%...

Periodically it is appropriate to exit the existing constraints of reality and ponder what might be if we all could for a moment scale the traditional walls that imprison us and ask some rather unusual questions...

Paint and coatings companies spend a great deal of time formulating products for their valued downstream clients, but how much time do they diligently spend in formulating strategy to improve the health of their business and the industry they serve? The core dimensions of a paint or coating include resins, solvents, pigments, catalysts or accelerators, cross-linkers, fillers and numerous additives...

Who resides in the elite "specialty chemical" clique? Thirty-three companies qualified by each achieving over USD one billion in "specialty" chemical sales...

With the current price increase frenzy in feedstock, raw materials, energy, chemicals, paint and coatings, it’s a great time to develop a "price increase justification tagline" library that your sales force can utilize again and again in those client-focused, heart-to-heart price increase negotiation engagements...

What happens when a host of chemical suppliers and paint/coatings manufacturers awake from a dream only to find valuable resources splashing about in stagnant, mature markets of predicted declining unit value for their existing product offering...

Price increases are abundant and frequent these days. Many raw material suppliers and formulators to the paint and coatings industry are attempting to improve sagging margins that have been slammed by rising energy, transportation and feedstock expenses...

If you read many of the CEO interviews, you’ll quickly observe a recurring theme to their business and corporate strategy rhetoric, namely "innovate to achieve growth". What exactly does that mean...

What has a gigantic Verbund, an unquenchable growth appetite, and loves to roam in offshore, lucrative, and cost effective market jungles? Germany-based BASF, one of the global frontrunners in the chemical industry, plans to invest 1 billion euros (US$1.27 billion) in the Asian market by 2009, with much of the cash destined for China...

The definitions of chemical category names depend on whom you ask, their past experience and the kind of day they have had. It's all so very confusing, all the different classifications of chemical companies. There are Basic, Diversified, Specialty, Performance, Commodity, Niche, Green, Pharma Intermediates and Fine Chemicals, to name a few categorical examples.

In the competitive business world there are many avenues to applying collaborative business model leverage to win the end game. Creative, innovative companies reach out to partners or complementary networks that fill the gaps in their existing value delivery system portfolio. Companies who construct collaborative business models are laying the foundation for profitable and sustainable growth in highly competitive business environments...

The customer filled the tank of his Ford F-150 pickup for $2.03 a gallon on a Thursday, when the average gasoline price was $2.73. How did he do it? A year ago, the retired milk truck driver bought 500 gallons of gas at First Fuel Banks, locking it in at the then-current price of $2.03 a gallon. He taps that reserve whenever gas rises above that mark...

The news media reports "Chevron Corp.'s first-quarter profit soared 49 percent to $4 billion, joining the procession of U.S. oil companies to report colossal earnings as lawmakers consider ways to pacify motorists agitated about rising gas prices." Note the media use of the inflammatory words "soar" and "colossal"...

Volatile oil prices and rising global current account imbalances are the primary blemishes on an otherwise bright outlook for the global economy...

No doubt, construction activity is a key signal to current and future demand for architectural or decorative paint and coatings formulations; however, with the continual transformations of many architectural substrates to either plastic with molded-in color, unpainted metal, chemically preserved wood or unfinished plastic wood composites the demand for architectural finishes becomes an increasingly complex picture to predict if viewed as a one-dimensional function of construction activity...

Wondering about the infrastructure of the paint and coatings industry in the USA? The U.S. paint and coatings industry is composed of approximately 1,000 companies with collective 2004 annual sales of $18.3 billion USD...

The high cost of fossil fuels is sparking efforts to identify savings approaches and creating new markets for alternative energy sources...

Growth centers may reside within geographic regions, value systems or companies and represent cells of potential or demonstrated outstanding growth rates. What are some examples? If you're looking for profitable business model benchmarks, BASF posted the best results in its history during 2005...

Higher consumer spending and favorable capital investments by businesses coupled with strong exports to China aided a recovery in the Japanese economy. Sumitomo Chemical posted a 61% increase in net profits during the last nine months of 2005...

Today the global powder coatings industry produces roughly 1 million metric tons of finished product for a total value in excess of 3.7 billion US dollars. The top 6 producers Akzo Nobel, DuPont, Rohm and Haas, Jotun, PPG and BASF command just under 50% share of the total market, with the remaining half served by in excess of 1000 regional or niche market coatings producers.

Offshore oil and gas production currently provides one third of the global total and is forecast to grow over the next decade at a rate of 3-4% each year. Oil production is expected to peak around 2010 but gas growth will continue. In this period exploration and operating costs for oil and gas fields are set to increase by a factor of ten.

The overriding driving force in the marine coatings market is the confidence that continuing high freight rates are instilling in the industry. Though the order book might be pointing to a slight slackening of demand in a few years' time, newbuilding has been growing quite substantially all over the world. On the one hand Korea, Japan and increasingly China remain the dominant world players.

The market for vehicle refinishes has gone through some rough years. Nevertheless, it seems that the developing regions are slowly starting to compensate - at least in volume - for the steady volume decline in the developed regions.

The September 2000 terrorist attacks brought a tremendous slowdown in the industry but also created a backlogue of demand which began to show through with a recovery in growth in 2004 that has continued strongly. In 2005 and early 2006 there have been unusually large orders for new aircraft and demand is expected to be strong for several years, eventually tailing off towards the end of the decade.

Last April we featured the Asian Paint Industry Council (APIC), highlighting how this union of paint and coatings associations represents the interests of all the important countries in the Asia Pacific region from Nepal to New Zealand. We went through its foundation in 1995, its charter and how in the intervening years it had expanded its membership and influence in regional and world coatings affairs. We ended the article with news about the upcoming meeting to be held in Bangkok under the auspices of the Thai Paint Manufacturers Association, hoping to celebrate yet another year of continued success.

In July 2005 we began publication of a series of reports on coatings sectors that operate on a global basis. To do this we made contact with the global Business Unit Manager from one of the major players in each of the sectors and asked for a short commentary on the current state of the market and its near term development, together with any important issues or events affecting the sector.

The world's developed Yacht Coatings markets are experiencing a flat market. The small volume growth expected over the forthcoming few years is in the developing territories, such as Eastern Europe.

Globally, 80% of coatings for wood floors are applied on site and 20% are factory applied. Though when looking at factory applied coatings it is important to appreciate that the majority of new wood floors are now prefinished and that the coverage of factory applied coatings is about twice a high as site applied.

The leather coatings business divides into automotive, furniture, garments, shoes and leathergoods, with shoes and leathergoods accounting for 60% of the market.

The Industrial (factory applied) Wood coatings market is split into three categories - Furniture (60%), Joinery (20%) and Other (20%). This update focuses on the Furniture wood coatings sector. It is a sector characterised by two distinct types of customer - large furniture manufacturers consuming large quantities of coatings for mass production and smaller artisans producing one off pieces of furniture or limited production runs from small factory operations. The larger furniture maker buys direct from a wood coatings manufacturer, whereas the smaller producer tends to use a distributor.

General industrial, as opposed to automotive OEM, electrocoat technology is used worldwide to achieve high quality, low cost finishes at a level of efficiency and environmental compliance few other finishing methods can approach. Performance advantages, along with reduced finishing costs, have made it a growth business with scope for new uses and technologies to be developed.

Decorative or architectural coatings are experiencing a stagnant market in Western Europe. Growth is primarily in the Central and East European countries, as well as in Asia, where China is the big challenge for the major European and American paint producers to embark. The US market is also positive and South America is growing at a modest pace.

Slow industry growth and excess vehicle manufacturing capacity has meant low profitability for the domestic automakers and cost pressures down the supply chain. The shift in market share to Asian producers continues. DuPont maintains a well-established position with Japanese and Korean auto manufacturers as they expand their presence in the Americas...

We are introducing a new feature to provide facts and informed opinion on those sectors of the coatings industry that operate on a global basis. To do this we made contact with the global Business Unit Manager from one of the major players in each of the sectors and ask for a short commentary on the current state of the market and its near term development, together with any important issues or events affecting the sector...

In this article the author shares the speculations of the industry experts at the recent "Radiation curing: update and outlook" symposium held in Enfield, near London. This one-day event on June 16th was a joint venture between the London Section of OCCA and industry association RadTech Europe.

Polyurethane dispersions (PUDs) are fully reacted polyurethane systems under the form of small discrete particles of maximum one tenth of a micrometer. These particles are dispersed in water to provide a material that is both chemically and colloidally stable. They contain only minor amounts of solvents and consequently emit nearly no volatile organic compounds...

Welcome to our 2003 Coatings Trends Survey page. Members of www.PaintandCoatings.com were invited to respond to 15 questions designed to delineate the changing direction of the paint and coatings industry in the next three to five years. The questions fell into two general categories: technical and Internet use.

Today's formulation criteria increase emphasis on reduced VOCs, and therefore efficient vehicle systems with the lowest possible viscosity and the highest solids loading have become very important. Therefore, modern solvent systems are more complex, usually made up of a combination of solvents. For this reason, formulators are finding it increasingly beneficial to quit thinking of solvents as one large group. The easiest method of distinguishing between commodity solvents and new purpose-intended "tune-up" solvents is to come up with a whole new classification for the new products, hence the name Performance Solvents.

Described as "a new industrial revolution", nanotechnologies are at the keen edge of sustainable production in Europe. Already fuelling a broad spectrum of applications in industries as diverse as information technologies, automotive, cosmetics, coatings, chemical and transport, they deliver cleaner, safer, more competitive production processes, as well as smarter, more durable and more user- friendly products. Nanotechnologies and nanomanufacturing thus provide innovative answers to the triple challenge of sustainable development: how to fuel economic growth, while preserving the environment, and at the same time enhance the safety, security and quality of life of European citizens.

In recent years, the EPA has become increasingly concerned not only about VOCs and their atmospheric effects, but also about hazardous atmospheric pollutants (HAPs) in general, including all aerosol materials that are toxic, or cause a harmful effect in the upper or lower atmosphere. Considerable effort has been made to develop computer dispersion models to attempt to predict the effect of natural and man-made pollutants on the ecosphere. In order to fully appreciate what might be going on in the atmosphere, we need to know more about, both as static and dynamic system.

Once each month, our India Correspondent, Mr. Ravi Marphathia will be bringing PaintandCoatings.com readers all of the news of the burgeoning Indian coatings market with a local perspective. This month, he explores the financial planning and partnerships that make Asian Paints and Goodlass Nerolac the top players in a market that has seen fundamental changes in the past several years.

In the Spring of 2002, PaintandCoatings.com conceived and carried out a survey concerning the technical ramifications of recent VOC regulations directed at architectural and decorative coatings produced in the USA. While the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and various other state regulatory agencies were developing more stringent rules concerning VOC content in this coatings class, our perception was that a technological gulf existed between regulated endpoints and end user performance requirements. With that in mind, PaintandCoatings.com sought to understand how manufacturers in the architectural market segment planned to address regulation issues as well as the directions that technology would take to meet regulatory issues.

Terrorists, warring factions, and saboteurs use chemicals commonly found in communities in industrialized nations to create improvised explosives, incendiaries, and chemical agents. Common chemicals may be used because standard military chemical agents may be difficult or dangerous to manufacture, access, or disperse. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) developed a 10-step procedure to analyze, mitigate, and prevent public health hazards resulting from terrorism involving industrial chemicals. The procedure includes identifying key information such as potential threats, local sources of chemicals of potential use to terrorists, exposure pathways, impacts on human health and infrastructure, health risk communication needs, and mitigation and prevention methods.

Before we even knew what coatings were, we were kids. A bicycle was, for many of us, our primary form of transportation. It was our freedom. Sure, gears and brakes were cool. A banana seat or a sissy bar could add to the look. But what really mattered was the paint job. At that point the only thing about the paint job we noticed was the color. Pretty pink, racing green, fire engine red or maybe even flames, the color defined who you were and what type of rider you would be. Contributor Robert Pogue, a paint chemist and cycling enthusiast, takes a look at a custom and semicustom shop, describes their commonality and points out how paint scientists improve the quality of rider's lives everywhere.

In spring of 1999, the biggest story in the industry was the South Coast Air Quality Management District's adoption of a proposed amendment to its Rule 1113 governing the amount of volatile organic compounds allowed in paints and other coatings. On June 24, 2002, The Court of Appeal of the State of California, Fourth Appellate District, Division 3 issued a writ of mandate commanding the South Coast Air Quality Management District to vacate its adoption of the amendments to Rule 1113.

Although the majority of the mixing and dispersion work done in a paint plant is done by high speed devices such as high speed dispersers and mills, both formulators and production people should also understand low speed mixing techniques, and the equipment used to complete these types of processes. Low speed devices are generally used to blend colors, let- down finished dispersions and keep components that may settle in suspension in large storage tanks. This type of mixing requires turbulent flow in a fairly low viscosity medium. The tools used are simple turbines of several types which are coupled to fairly low specific power drives in order to provide either radial or axial flow, or a mixture of the two.

One problem with media milling since ball mills was the inefficiency of energy distribution inside the grinding chamber. While using a pumping impeller as a media acceleration device is by no means a novel idea, the authors describe the design process behind selecting volute contours, specific power loading and media population. The article takes you through the design of the Dyno-Accelerator, comparing and contrasting this new design with standard horizontal mills by energy distribution and by means of final product quality.

We have recently seen experimentation with supercritical CO2 as a solvent and propellant in the paint industry, so why not near-critical H20 to replace process solvents? Read on to understand how the researchers at Georgia Tech propose this material as a replacement for organic solvents in certain types of reactions.

No single other operational problem affects the international shipping community as greatly as the need to find a replacement for tributyltin based antifouling coatings. These TBT coatings were recognized in 1989 as causing deformation in oysters and sex changes in whelks. Other agents have been tried, including hot pepper derived chemicals and algae venom. No alternative has proven as effective as the TBT systems currently in use. This article offers a quick look at TBT coatings and recently offered alternatives, and an update on the current legislation, which calls for complete prohibition of use by 2008.

Asphalt bitumen tends to flow. (Put a brick on top of a cube of roofing bitumen for a week, and it will disappear into the cube.) On the rural routes of Pennsylvania, rutting is a particular danger, especially in the rain. This appears to be a solution.

Galvanized steel sheet use by the automobile industry gained a high profile in the late 1980s/early 1990s when more and more carmakers opted to use it instead of applying extra layers of paint to beat rust. Automobiles have spurred an increase in demand for zinc for the last ten to 15 years, but growth from the automotive sector may slow down considerably in the next millennium.

Of all recent developments in processing machiners, the basket mill has been among the most cheerfully received. Basket mill is designed specifically to offer complete mixing and dispersing in a single tank without tank changes or separate premix. Find more details in this article.

Brownfields are abandoned, closed, or under-used industrial or commercial properties where expansion or redevelopment is hindered by real or perceived chemical contamination. The cleanup and repurposing or restoration of brownfields represents one of the most challenging environmental and urban initiatives in the USA.

Few chemical materials on earth have found more uses than calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate is all around us, and much-used in the coatings industry. Understand the types of calcium carbonate available and their correct use in modern coatings formulations.

Corporate think-tanks and incubators have been around for many years. This article explores a new, Internet-based organization that specializes in the development of assets in the chemical industries, including paint and coatings.

Color is an experience enjoyed by almost all the human race from a very early age. Our coatings reflect our love of color, and come in all hues and shades. With the profusion of effects pigments no