Alan Gayle is a sales and marketing consultant specialising in the construction industry. In this column he offers advice on how to make an impact in the market. This time he considers lessons to be learnt from Kodak.

You might not know, but the once mighty photography giant Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection last month. Although the company is still trading, it has been forced to seek protection from its creditors while a court oversees its restructuring proposals under a process known in the US as ‘Voluntary Chapter 11 Business Reorganisation’.
How the mighty have fallen.
While I doubt there will be many in the stone industry mourning the demise of a company that was for decades the undisputed market leader in its field, the reason for the company’s downfall may provide a valuable lesson for us all.
What killed off Kodak’s growth? Digital camera technology. The widespread adoption of digital cameras over the last decade or so produced a corresponding decline in the sale of cameras that use film.
Kodak was fully aware of the rise of digital technology but while the Japanese at Cannon and Nikon saw it as an opportunity, the American company Kodak decided it was in the business of selling film and that cameras were just a means to that end. Perhaps they thought the digital revolution would blow over and film cameras would reign supreme once more.
Ironically, Kodak had been at the cutting edge of digital camera technology. It pioneered much of the technology required to create digital cameras and its patents have generated $3billion in revenues in less than 10 years. Kodak even developed and marketed the world’s first digital SLR camera.
So what went wrong?
The mass market wanted digital cameras but Kodak still thought its core business was selling film. Cannon, Nikon and others used Kodak’s technology to create what the market wanted and by the time Kodak realised its mistake, the world had changed and its competitors were ruling the roost that Kodak once dominated.
The lesson for the stone industry is this: the construction industry is changing. Natural stone has ridden the wave of consumer preferences for natural materials for several years, but we need to move with the times. I’m not suggesting that stone will somehow lose its appeal. I believe (and hope) it will remain the material of choice for many specifiers and clients alike. But I think the way it’s used is changing.
Specifiers want to use several different materials within one elevation. Clients want cheaper buildings with less maintenance. Main contractors want to eliminate wet trades and scaffold. Enter the curtain-walling and façade contractors.
Where once only stone contractors installed stone cladding, now curtain walling contractors have started installing it as part of their ‘façade solutions’.
Where stonemasonry workshops and factories used to supply the installer, now stone is being processed to specifications beyond the scope of many masonry companies.
Lightweight stone on an aluminium honeycomb backing is one example. It not only reduces the weight, it also drastically reduces the amount of stone required. It comes at a price, but when the price of the project is considered instead of the price of the cladding, the lighter weight frame and foundations that can be used can offset the cost of the cladding.
You might say you can’t use honeycomb-backed stone on historic buildings and that there is no substitute for the look of hand-set stone. And, of course, you would be right. But if innovations in stone processing and installation grow even half as much as digital cameras did, will historic building work and the occasional hand-set new build be enough to sustain the stone industry as we know it?
If your take on that is that it won’t, it could be time to reassess your position in the market, either as a recognised and sought after specialist of traditional skills or as a supplier of new-style stone solutions.

Alan Gayle is a sales and marketing consultant specialising in the construction industry. He spent 19 years with some of the UK’s leading building product manufacturers and has worked in the stone sector for the past eight years. Alan now runs Gayle Associates, which provides a range of sales and marketing services for small and medium sized contractors and suppliers. His clients are seeking growth but the management are too busy to do it themselves and they don’t want the commitment of a full-time employee.
alan@GayleAssociates.co.uk
www.GayleAssociates.co.uk