Building Products

An integral part of our UK Construction & Housebuilding sector, our UK Building products network provides focused services to building products manufacturers and distributors. Our group comprises over 50 specialists , many of whom have come from a range of industrial and professional backgrounds including building merchants, aggregates, construction and housebuilding sectors

The UK network is also closely linked to PricewaterhouseCoopers' European and Global Construction networks giving our teams the international reach required to understand and advise this sector.

An in-depth understanding of key industry issues is central to our delivery of services to our Building Products clients.

Key issues facing companies in the UK building products sector include:

Managing profitability through cost savings

Building products companies face the challenge of maintaining margins in the current environment of cost inflation and pricing pressure. Realising the benefits of low cost sourcing (LCS) is a key tool in maintaining their competitiveness. Potential savings vary by product, but we have seen cost reductions of 30% to 40% in areas such as electrical accessories and heating and ventilation components. Low cost sourcing is not without risk. Through helping a number of clients we have identified key pitfalls and success factors and have built a holistic pre-order and post-order approach to low cost sourcing around:

• analysing the opportunities
• identifying potential suppliers
• assessing suppliers
• building relationships
• implementing the programme

Impact of new building regulations and how to address the sustainability agenda

The importance of sustainable development issues to the Building Products sector is not new but the intensity of interest in these issues and their profile within sector generally has intensified significantly in recent times. Issues around climate change as well as sustainable resource use and waste reduction and recycling are prominent as are more traditional areas such as health and safety.  Drivers for change in the sector are new regulation, customer and industry standards as well as market and societal expectations. It is imperative for building products companies to have a current and clear position on sustainable development and be able to articulate this position to customers, investors and other stakeholders so as to ensure that these areas build value within the business.  

Delivering value through an incentivised employee base

One of the main challenges is to build environments in which people can work most effectively and to help clients create value for their businesses through their people. We bring the ability to take fresh perspectives, think differently, and develop and implement new and value adding solutions. Examples of recent projects are:

• designing and implementing effective reward programmes and performance management arrangements to aide retention and to focus on managing the talent within the business
• managing employer and employee expenditure through cost effective remuneration strategies
• helping our client's look at their Corporate Social Responsibility strategy and the ways it can help support its employees become more environmentally friendly
• dealing with pension scheme deficits
• linking company culture and reward strategy with the goals of the business
• measuring HR function effectiveness and service delivery communicating clearly to people across all levels of the business.

Opportunities to extract value from the supply chain

Supply chains across the Building Products sector are at different stages of maturity. Lessons learnt from other industries in reshaping the supply chain and better managing relationships within it can be applied to Building Products.

Manufacturers are often removed from their end-users by distributors, specifiers and other purchase decision makers throughout the supply chain. Those who are able to develop a clear understanding of each player's purchase requirements - despite the disintermediation - and manage these various relationships are typically able to build advantage over their competitors.