Page 42 - Australasian Paint & Panel Mar-Apr 2019

Industry intelligence
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PAINT&PANEL MARCH / APRIL 2019
WWW.PAINTANDPANEL.COM.AU
work remotely,” Bryant says. “That’s fun- damentally different to how it was 10 years ago and even more so 20 years ago. So from a talent perspective our industry requires continued and ongoing innovation and in- novation in a number of areas. We have programs with many universities all around the world and we offer internships where we’re trying to bring in technical tal- ent. It's a broad spectrum covering chemis- try, chemical engineering, physics, mathe- matics. The rate of change is accelerating so we’re actually able to attract a number of highly qualified people into that.
“In today’s world you have to get to peo- ple sooner and faster and have them ex- cited to work at your company. In the war for talent the ethos of the company is im- portant. Why is what you’re doing helpful to the world and society at large, how are you going to make a difference? This is a much bigger issue to young people than it was in the past when people didn’t ques- tionthat-itwasmorejustIneedajobto feed my family. So that’s another element within Axalta - given our vision, our core values and what we try to do - that differ- entiates us compared to the competition.
“At the trade level, in terms of having re- ally good technical people in bodyshops and also in technical sales and service around the world, there is a shortage of quality talented painters globally. That's
due to generational changes as well as the opportunities to work in other in- dustries. In certain countries we’re developing more apprenticeship-type programs and trying to get to people ear- lier and in each country it’s different. That is an area of keen focus for Axalta.”
Here in Australia Brett pointed to Axal- ta's support of WorldSkills and training with I-CAR and TAFE.
Bryant has been with Axalta for six years now, his previous role was as chief financial officer. I asked what he was most proud of Axalta achieving in that time.
“There are many things about which I’m proud,” he said. “If I had to limit it to just one it would be the feedback from our cus- tomers that Axalta is fundamentally a dif- ferent company. Much more intimate with customers, highly focused on satisfying customer needs, highly focused on helping our customers develop a competitive ad- vantage. So by helping our customers to succeed we, as Axalta, can be successful.”
Sobers agrees: “People thought we would lose a lot of customers when we transitioned from DuPont to Axalta but we didn’t. I think that is because they could see Axalta’s attention was on their custom- ers and we’ve only grown since then.”
Australia is a small but very competi- tive market, I wondered how Axalta would give itself an edge going forward.
“Our business is a
unique one in that you are trying to get your
customers to use less and less of your product - which is kind of ironic.”
“Investment is one way,” said Brett “This investment in our new headquarters and bringing the warehousing in house - serv- ing our customers directly and overseeing that ourselves. The training centre we’re developing is not your traditional training centre, it’s not just about demonstrating paint techniques, it’s about demonstrating bodyshop management solutions. And the second thing is really about the culture. People buy from people and its really about having the right attitude in the market- place. We want to have the reputation that these people always fix my problems”.
Sobers commented on the Asian mar- ketplace: “Each market in Asia is different - we don’t club it together as Asia. We have been very successful at having local teams and local leadership in each country which allows us to be able to compete like the local paint companies because we do understand the market locally and that’s why we are so successful. Instead of try- ing to one model everywhere, we tweak the model to adapt to local conditions.”
Bryant closed by commenting that envi- ronmental concerns would give global players an edge in the near future.
“I do think an important differentiator is going to be the increased focus on the environment and the regulatory oversight that comes with it. You’ve seen it happen in China, and it’s obviously in place in the US, here and in Europe. In other countries in Asia I think one would expect to see that ramp up over time and that’s really going to favour players in the marketplace that have the best technologies. So we have VOC compliant solvent and then for those that want to be waterborne we have that too. You don’t see many of the local paint companies having that kind of tech- nological offering and I think you’ll see greater separation between the global players and everyone else over the next 10 years as that regulation spreads and be- comes more ubiquitous.”
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Sobers Sethi, vice president of Asia Pacific ex China; CEO Robert Bryant from the US; Australian managing director Steven Brett.