Coatings World - March 2015

CEO Forum

without increasing zinc content, and so ensures lower long-term maintenance costs and higher application productivity. All these products and technologies will always be coupled with expert technical service.

Roy: For the Decorative business, we would like to expand our distribution network especially in South and West of India and also focus on brand building. Focus on innovative products and services for growing and gaining market share in 2015 and beyond will be a key strategy for Decorative Business line. On the Industrial side our focus will be on building up a stronger R&D team and developing products and services which add significant value to our customers.

Shaver: We will be addressing strategic opportunities on a number of business fronts. For example, in North America we are focusing on the growing strength of MSOs and the collision repair market in general. We plan to continue to build out our OEM capabilities and to continue to win business with these global customers by leveraging our broad range of VOC-compliant coatings and proprietary manufacturing processes for paint shops. We will continue rollout of our waterborne coatings. These are not only looked upon by customers as a more sustainable solution but can also offer added productivity to their operations. We are advancing into more mainstream markets where price/value is more critical and we believe we have the right offerings.

We’ll leverage last year’s launches of a number of products that were previously more regional offerings, like Voltatex electrical insulation products and the Alesta Global Color Collection of powder coatings and Alesta ZeroZinc powder coatings. Regionally, emerging markets are an important focus. Increased vehicle production, for example in China, and the resulting growth of the car parc present opportunities for both OEM and, over the longer term, Refinish. We will also begin to take advantage of the investments we announced last year that will see the start-up of additional manufacturing capacity in China – which had its grand opening March 3 – Brazil and Mexico as well as in production in Germany which supplies both eastern and central Europe.

CW: In what areas are you focusing your
R&D efforts?

Büchner: Our innovation in particular is focused on the
sustainable benefits we can provide for our customers.
Highlights during 2014 included the launch of a new bar-
rier coating which made it possible to create the world’s first
fully compostable and recyclable paper cup for cold drinks.
Another exciting innovation was launched by our Decorative
Paints business. The award-winning Visualizer app enables
users to see in real time what a room will look like in a wide
range of different colors – before any paint is applied to the
wall – making it more fun to interact with the way you deco-
rate your home.

In 2014 we invested €363 million in research and development. Our RD&I investments have resulted in 19 percent of revenue derived from eco-premium solutions with customer benefits.

Bunch: We see a variety of high-level trends that are driving growth across each segment, and where we are focusing our research investments. One example is the demand for color. In 1909, Henry Ford famously said that a customer could have any color of Model T car he wanted, as long as that color was black. Today, there are thousands of colors on the road. Color science has come a long way since then, and coatings offers customers a way to differentiate themselves in a meaningful way.

Another key driver for research and development investment is energy. Changes in energy are driving a revolution in the materials and processes used to manufacture products in a number of industries served by the coatings and specialty materials sector. Coatings will serve a key role in meeting the demand for more efficient operations for buildings, lighter and more efficient modes of transportation, and lower-cost manufacturing processes. For example, PPG’s coatings technologies help automakers lower energy use by eliminating steps in the manufacturing process.

In 2014, nearly a quarter of PPG product sales came from coatings and materials that addressed our customers’ most pressing challenges, such as energy and asset protection. PPG is integral in helping our customers create more sustainable products - from coatings that contribute to lighter, more fuel-efficient vehicles to paint systems that assist our customers in reducing water use and waste production during their manufacturing processes. Across markets, PPG technologies such as