Case Study – Best practices for attracting NEW customers to your laser cutting business
BEST PRACTICES FOR ATTRACTING NEW CUSTOMERS TO YOUR LASER CUTTING BUSINESS
Are you adding plasma cutting and drilling to your laser capabilities?
How a contract laser cutting company grew their business following an investment in plasma cutting with drilling and milling capacity.
This case study will discuss gaps in laser cutting capabilities and market opportunities that are lost due to these gaps not servicing existing and related markets.
Recently, a long-standing contract laser cutting company invested in their first plasma cutting machine from Specialist Machinery Sales (SMS) with the specific intent to improve their product offering and grow their business. SMS worked in partnership with our client and shared our knowledge of market trends and aspirations to precisely understand how the value was going to realise.
Prior to this change in the offering, the laser cutting company revenue was down 30% due to a number of projects being fabricated offshore and their clients move towards local plasma cut and drilled parts. The CFO felt the business model needed to change and improve to survive. There was a determination to extend outside current activities to allow for growth in current and previously unknown markets, as they were not relevant. This provided their existing and new customers with the choice of cutting technologies.
Following a review of the business services, and to explore why related markets were not served, our client recognised that they were performing well in the laser cutting market they had served for 15 years. They found that to address the gap in their capability and complement their existing fleet of lasers, an investment in a plasma cutting combination drilling & milling machine would address revenue, capability and capacity concerns.
The gap analysis review suggested clients were placing orders with plate processing businesses that are using machines supplied from SMS. The review concluded that customers and engineers were specifying holes must be drilled to prevent heat-affected zones from plasma, oxy or laser cutting.
This analysis further highlighted that the laser cutting company’s existing clients understood that their laser business did not have plasma/drilling capacity so, they were not included in the opportunity to bid for these projects. An investment in a plasma cutting machine with drilling functionality was identified to impact key business drivers.
To test the client’s determination to extend outside their current activities they needed to test the plasma market served by competitors. What was identified during a gap analysis review that addressed performance shortfalls in the laser-cutting businesses capability, was that fabricators had relegated manual machines from their operation, including magnetic & radial drills, bevel cutting, marking and tapping, when they placed orders with contract plasma cutting companies that used the machine also supplied by SMS.
SMS, using our knowledge and expertise, designed a specification to match the client’s performance outcomes so they could bid and win project opportunities to supply their markets and be highly relevant and commercially competitive for a number of years.
The client acknowledged that they would be in a position to address new markets with immediate effect and that it was highly probable that further growth into adjacent sectors would follow. What they found was that the hourly rate they were able to apply from plasma/drilling work was 40% higher than their current laser capacity. That shared a similar investment price for a fully specified plasma cutting combination machining and drilling machine from SMS.
Through implementing a specification driven selection that delivers increased capability enhanced sector relevance and potential revenue streams. The plasma machine SMS supplied complemented the laser cutting existing fleet of machines and reduced the cost of sale and expenses, which in turn produced happy customers.
If all our assets and all of our people have the versatility to do not only what we need today but what we need in our future, how much more confident would we be with what that future looks like?
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