By Graeme Bailey, Managing Director, Business Micros

“Business Micros supplies software to more than 70% of the window fabrication businesses in the UK. This, I think, gives us a fairly unique perspective in assessing how the industry has evolved over the past decade.

The industry as a whole has certainly shown itself to be strong and resilient but there has been an interesting divergence between those businesses which have resisted change - typified by the fact that some are still using the same Winstar software programme as they did in 2000 because it does a ‘perfectly adequate job’, and those who have embraced change and who have, for example, switched to our Evolution platform because it enables them to achieve real manufacturing efficiencies and to maximise new sales and commercial opportunities.

We have witnessed the rise and fall of the ‘superfabricator’ over the past ten years but more significantly perhaps we have also seen the emergence of a new breed of highly professional companies with a more progressive outlook who have overcome the challenges presented not just by the recession but by issues such as WERs and the Code for Sustainable Homes.

These fabricators now set the standards in this industry and, whist I think there remains a place for traditional businesses who want to continue doing things as they have always done, I think as we look forward to the 2010s there is a danger that many may find themselves simply squeezed out by pressure from more hungry and determined competitors”.