Cautious Mapei winning the race

Italy-based Mapei's business development manager Laith Haboubi chats with Conrad Egbert about the future of the company and how it's managing through the economic slowdown.

Can you tell us a little about Mapei and its range of products?
Mapei was formed in 1937 in Milan, which means that they’ve been around for 71 years now. It has grown tremendously over the past few years. It now operates over 53 plants world wide in 26 countries. The business is divided into nine product lines ranging from, what they’re best known for, which is the ceramic line which includes adhesives and anything to do with fixing tiles, natural stone and marble.

It also has a building line which includes water-proofing, mortars for general building, concrete admixtures, cement grinding aids, sealants etcetera. There’s a whole series of products but Mapei is most well known around the world for its ceramic line. It is the absolute leader worldwide in this area. 

How long have you been operating here?
Mapei has been operating here for well over 10 years. It was involved in many projects including the Burj Al Arab, Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace Hotel, and Dubai International Airport’s Terminal 1.

But that was all managed and supplied directly from Italy. So obviously as a result of all this work, Mapei decided it needed to have a local operation to be closer to the market and the company Innovative Building Solutions (by Mapei) was established by the end of 2007. So as a legal entity we’ve only been set up for about a year and a half.

So how come it took you so long to set up here?
We’re very careful with planning and also we’re incredibly busy elsewhere in the world as there was so much growth. It’s a company that gets a lot of growth from developed or mature economies as well. Around a third of its business comes from the US and the North America market and another third comes from Italy on its own with the rest of the world being the balance.

So these are mature markets that you wouldn’t typically associate with a lot of growth potential, but Mapei succeeds because of the type of products that it has. It always looks for a solid base for business and although there has been a lot of building growth here, it took the company a while to have the confidence that this is going to be a sustainable market as a region.

How is the market at the moment?
Obviously the market is tough and it has its challenges for us as it does for everyone. It’s been particularly challenging for us as we’re a relative new comer in the market. But we’ve just set up a manufacturing facility in Dubai Investment Park and also an office and technical training centre here in Al Quoz where we carry out a lot of technical seminars and training for our customers. 

And what is this training?
We talk about details of the product from the correct specification, mixing, application and even selection of tools to ensure that they get the job right the first time round.

Are project and jobs hard to come by at the moment?
Obviously we’re trying to broaden our portfolio of customer and projects so that we’re not solely linked to major projects which are what we’re best known for but obviously it’s easier to talk about the bigger projects as that is what can be related to better.

We’re working on the Dubai Metro at the moment with the installation of the stone finishes on the elevated platforms; we’re involved on the Burj Dubai and also the Atlantis – that’s obviously finished now – but we’re still hoping that these projects might go into an expansion stage.

We also like to get involved with projects where people really value the right installation of material.

What about Abu Dhabi,?
Abu Dhabi probably has about the same growth potential as Dubai and we are looking at focusing more over there later on in the year.

Your Eco line – is that growing?
That is actually a growing product line for us at the moment. In the last 18 months there has been a lot of talk about green products in the UAE with lots of regulations coming in about them and we’ve been quite lucky as a lot of our products are already Leed compliant. We can actually help a lot of the building owners achieve Leed points towards certification because of this.

Since 2001 Mapei has strived to develop environmentally friendly products. It’s been an internally driven initiative even before these types of products became popular. Even today about 5% of the company’s turnover goes into research and development and 70% of that 5% goes into research of green products alone. And this is of the total company turnover so that is a significant amount of investment.

Are you involved in restoring historical buildings in the region?
I’m not sure how much restoration work is actually going on around here but we’d certainly be interested. It’s something that we’ve got the products for, and have been heavily involved in around the world. We’d love to get involved if we can.

How have you reorganised to guard against the crisis?
We’re a cautious company anyway. We’re not someone who grows out of control. Also maybe it’s because we’re a relative newcomer to this market that we do business in a very systematic way. We make sure that any projects we take on are serviced in the best way possible and we give all the technical support that is needed.

Our products are perceived to be a little more expensive than others but we can actually show a lot of added value (i.e. getting it right the first time, not having to go back to replace tiles, applications etc). If we’re given the opportunity, we can actually show people that we can save money through efficiency, which is quite valuable at the moment.

We’re also spreading out the projects we’re working on. We’re not putting all our eggs in one basket; we’re keeping a decent spread of projects and customers and we’re also looking at increasing our range of products
as well.

Are any of your clients looking to speed up construction to finish quicker?
Yes we have a few projects in Abu Dhabi where they’ve been told to speed up things and this is where we come in. We have products which reduce moisture contents which in turn can save two to four weeks on programme time by reducing the speed of installation.

For instance, we can provide a rapid hydrating screed onto which any finish can be installed from 24 hours to  48 hours. In normal terms you’d have to wait about three or four weeks.

And this is not bad for the construction process?
If you choose the right materials then, no. In the past, yes. I mean you can’t use the same materials and the same techniques and just do it faster. You just can’t, that’s just asking for trouble. We’re hitting a section of the market where people are saying, ‘well actually, I do want to reduce my programme time but I don’t want to compromise on quality.’

That’s where we score and add value. Our products are very unique in the market from that perspective.  For instance, we’re doing a project in Abu Dhabi with Ultraplan Maxi, one of our self-levelling materials. They want to commence with finishing applications within 24 to 48 hours and no one could offer them a product that could do that.

Even your competitors?
Even our competitors.