Fenzi North America takes a new approach

A corporate journey narrated for us by James Rodo, named General Manager of the Group’s American production and distribution hub in late 2015.

Since its founding in 2003, Fenzi North America has made a name for itself in the sealants industry, successfully servicing the entire territory of Canada and the United States from its base in Toronto and selling the superior-quality products that have made Fenzi a global leader.

Riding the wave of an extremely positive climate in North America, in 2016 it substantially increased its training and promotion activities for all of the Group’s business units with the aim of opening new sales channels in order to achieve an extremely high level of penetration in all glass industry sectors.

“There is no doubt that both the US and Canadian markets are strong and continue an overall upward growth trend – points out Rodo – Let’s begin with the figures from the US construction market: the forecasts are for $1,234.5 billion in 2017, with a 6.3% increase over 2016. This upsurge should last into 2018, the year in which construction spending should swell by another 7.2%. Despite a slowdown in 2016 and the first quarter of 2017, both the housing and commercial sectors are already experiencing significant, steady growth that will last through the next few years”.

Excellent news for the current year, as well: overall spending in the housing construction sector should grow by 7.4% in 2017 reaching 501.7 billion dollars, while the non-residential sector is expected to grow by 5.5% to reach 732.8 billion dollars.

“This is clearly an encouraging sign – continues Rodo – Especially considering that the manufacturers of IG units are reporting a 10-15% boom in business compared to 2016”.

Competition is fierce in all the market segments in which Fenzi North America is positioned. Only products and services of the highest quality that is consistent over time can attain a leadership position:

“It is crucial to ensure that our customers always have access to top-notch support services. The biggest challenge is to maintain a high qualitative level of products and service while still offering competitive pricing. Fenzi North America is working in this direction, focusing on the utmost efficiency to slash production costs as much as possible and be even more competitive in the market”.

James Rodo also concentrated on team training to build a solid base of technical expertise across the entire sales force, also extending the option to existing customers and creating new business opportunities.

“We took an aggressive approach to both the housing and commercial markets, successfully expanding our sales target. In addition, we can rely on a massive distribution capability, excellent support staff and top level customer service, essential elements to increasing our market share. But that’s not all. Our research and development lab has proven to be a huge resource and is a major added value for our customers, especially in the formulation of new solutions and exploring new products. Every day our team steps up in ways that demonstrate its quality and expertise. For all these reasons, I am certain that Fenzi North America has everything it takes to become the American glass industry’s number-one supplier.”

Not an easy challenge, but one where some products, like Thiover and the warm edge spacers for high-performance IG units, have already come out on top. Not to mention the excellent performance of products like Hotver A+ and Molver DM, the latest to be launched on the market.

“The market has embraced Fenzi products and their performance capabilities. Cutting edge technical features and constant testing, with a view to ongoing development, have made our products genuine best-sellers”.