Inox Market: Bring high end stainless steel service and products to the global market
----Interview with Mr. Maurizio Tamborin Global Sales Manager Inox Market Service Group
Headquartered in Italy, Inox Market Service Group is a global stainless steel independent service center. They have production plants in Italy, Mexico, United States and India and the annual sales amount of stainless steel products is more than 110,000t.
Asian Metal: Thank you for taking our interview. Please introduce your company briefly.
Mr.Tamborin: Founded in the year of 1948, we are a stainless steel independent service center with more than 70 years of experience in the market. Our headquarter is in Italy, but since the late 90s we expanded our operations globally and we now count more than 500 employees worldwide.
Asian Metal: Which markets are your stainless steel products mainly sold to?
Mr.Tamborin: We currently have production plants in Italy, Mexico, United States and India, and consequently our strongest markets are Europe, North America, Latin America and the emerging market of India.
Asian Metal: Which industries are your stainless steel products used in?
Mr.Tamborin: We are mainly focused in the industries which require high standards of esthetical appearances, in particular home appliances, hoods, industrial kitchens, elevators and panels. We also work with architects and interior designers for high end products such as anti-finger print, colored stainless, etching and embossed material.
Nonetheless, we are always exploring new markets, in fact, we have also managed to rethink old industry sectors and make them attractive for us. By offering innovative solutions such as our new inorganic high performance anti-finger print varnish we managed to convert low-end, low-profit products into high-end products. This allowed our customers to have a competitive advantage in the market, which ended up benefiting us directly.
Asian Metal: What are the advantages of your products compared with other steel mills worldwide?
Mr.Tamborin: We are a service center, so our competitive advantage can be found in our high quality tailor maid products, something generally mills are not able to offer. An example would be the cut to size material, with special finishes such as non directional brushing, embossed, colored stainless and inorganic anti-finger print.
In addition to the product innovation we offer a high standard of service with fast delivery and flexible minimum order quantity, therefore allowing the customer to transfer complexity to us and keeping their process as essential to their core business as possible.
Asian Metal: Recently, Chinese prices of stainless steel products especially 304 grade kept going down on lower raw material costs. How about the stainless steel market in Europe and North America?
Mr.Tamborin: Our core business is service and high end products, therefore the price of the raw material has a relative impact for us. This does not mean that it does not have any impact, but what it does mean is that our customers are more service and quality oriented.
In general the current situation is not easily interpretable, and prices are volatile and constantly under pressure. The situation is to be kept monitored on a daily basis. Overall European and North American markets are experiencing a flat demand, so we are expecting a negative outlook for prices in the first quarter of 2020.
Asian Metal: How about the demand for stainless steel from downstream industries in Europe and North America?
Mr.Tamborin: The demand varies depending on the end use market, and in particular it depends on the customer base to which the final product is meaning to target. For example, our high end products have been performing very well due to the fact our customers are fabricating finished products for premium end use customers, and this kind of customer base is always searching for new products. For this segment innovation and new trends are the two main drivers.
At the contrary other less value added markets have been experiencing a lower demand, driven mainly by the uncertainty and an increase of complexity generated by global trade wars. For this segment the demand has been weak, and we forecast that it will be so up until the end of the first quarter of 2020.
As a consequence of the increase in the high end use and a decrease in the less value added market, we consider the overall demand as being flat.
Asian Metal: What do you think of the stainless steel market trend in 2020?
Mr.Tamborin: If US and China will be able to come to an agreement and sign the trade agreement, then uncertainly in the market will stabilize and confidence will rise. With this happening, we are expecting a general increase in the demand in the second half of the year.
Unfortunately, even if we see a positive outlook in 2020, the gains we are hoping for the second half of the year will not be able to cover the losses of the first half, therefore at its best closing the year on a flat basis in respect to 2019.
Asian Metal: Do you have any new plans for product and market development?
Mr.Tamborin: We are about to inaugurate in Q3/2020 our US operations in Delaware County (Indiana), which will be focused in the high end products such as colored stainless and inorganic anti-finger print products. We are going to replicate the high quality service package we are already delivering in our current markets, including flexible MOQ, fast delivery, high end and high quality products.
