Building Materials

Articulating the Voice of Customer across the entire building materials value chain

Principia is a marketing consulting firm to the building materials industry. We help our clients increase market share, grow revenues and improve margins through customized client engagements. We have the best view into the building materials industry built from Voice of Customer and direct industry experience. We have worked with many of the leading participants in every product category in residential and commercial construction, as well as infrastructure.

Our industry knowledge and market access across the value chain enables us to reach the right point in the market and have a dialogue about what concerns them. This end to end coverage ensures that knowledge from the entire value chain is transferred to our clients for key decisions and effective market actions.

Raw Material Supplier

Principia helps companies in chemicals, plastics, and minerals to deliver value to the building materials industry. We access the right people formulating or designing products as well as those in sales and marketing to understand where value can be created along the value chain.

Suppliers of raw materials look to Principia to help identify direct opportunities to deliver value to their building materials customers by better understanding their product and service needs. Focusing on lead users enables you to get a jump on where the market is headed beyond today's requirements.

Principia also brings the full market picture into focus for raw materials suppliers by going deeper into the supply chain to understand what builders, installers, and property owners are looking for. Working down the value chain can help suppliers formulate products for specific performance improvements.

Building Product Manufacturer

Building materials manufacturers are looking to drive value through products and services offered not only to their point of sale customer, typically in distribution, but also to specifiers, influencers, and installers and users of their products.

Principia provides access to each part of the value chain, helping suppliers of building materials address the needs of each audience.

The building materials manufacturer needs to understand how its products and services support each constituency and what can be done to deliver more value to each group while driving revenue, margin, and share.

Distributor

As a vital link in the chain, distributors add value for building materials manufacturers and for their own organizations. Principia helps distributors optimize their line card, tailor their service model and understand customer needs in order to drive share gains and optimize margin.

We also reach 1000s of distributors each year to help manufacturers ensure that they are the brand of choice in their category. Our intimate access to distribution allows us to understand what distributors want from their principals and which are measuring up.

Knowing which distributors are strongest in each category is crucial for the distributors themselves as well as building product manufacturers. Manufacturers need to get placement within the channel and with the leaders in their category. Principia helps manufacturers and distributors understand which product and service features will drive market share benefiting both partners.

Architect / Builder

Architects and builders are often the key specifiers of building materials. Principia helps its clients understand and break down the decision making and specification process. By ensuring that your current and developmental products are meeting architect and builder expectations, you can promote the right combination of product and service.

Principia helps you know how your product stacks up against must have performance like building codes and nice to have features that architects and builders prefer.

Contractor

As a key link to the property owner, installers and contractors will present and recommend building materials that they prefer to use. Therefore, this front line group becomes a key influence on manufacturer and distributor sales success.

Principia contacts 1000s of installers and contractors to help our clients understand why they use the products that they do, why they buy where they do, and what product and service improvements will swing their usage towards a particular brand. This down channel knowledge is useful for manufacturers and distributors to align their resources to meet the needs of the market.

Property Owner

Principia gathers Voice of Customer information from 1000s of interviews with homeowners and commercial property owners in each building materials category every year. This knowledge is invaluable to understand the ultimate users' perspectives on competitive products and services. Property owners play a strong role in product and supplier selection and therefore are pivotal in determining your growth trajectory.

Principia delivers value to its clients by synthesizing property owner attitudes and usage and translating them into actions.