Poacher turned gamekeeper

There is a delicious irony in the choice of development director for the new marketing and development organisation aimed at promoting the use of concrete in the UK.

With 52 UK concrete and cement companies aiming to band together under one organisation - operating under the temporary working title of Concrete Thinking - there could surely be no lack of experts to choose from. Yet the group of senior executives behind the initiative offered the job of development director to Ian Cox, a man with many years' experience not in the concrete sector, but in steel.

The reason the concrete industry chose to offer him the job appears to be down to the impressive job carried out by Cox and his colleagues in helping to pull British Steel (that was) out of the doldrums in the late 1970s.

"I don't bring any baggage to the industry and I don't have any ties to a particular sector," says Cox emphatically.

Having trained as a civil engineer, Cox worked in mainstream construction for companies such as Balfour Beatty and Tarmac. When an opportunity arose in the early 1980s for him to join a team at British Steel to help increase the market share of structural steelwork, Cox jumped at the opportunity. "Having been trained in a traditional sector of construction, I was excited about the career change," he recalls.

Since then he has worked as education manager at the Steel Construction Institute and helped set up the Steel Construction Centre.

"British Steel is a classic case of how an industry picked itself up and changed its position in the market," enthuses Cox.

There is no need for him to become a concrete specialist. "My background enables me to understand what people are talking about, but not to do their job," he points out.

CJ caught up with him a few days after he returned from a trip to the US and it was evident that jet lag had not diminished the development director's daunting energy levels.

"It had been a long-standing threat to send me to the US," he explains. "After I completed my marketing plan for Concrete Thinking, I went to see how the concrete industry is faring in the US. I was pleased that the Americans' approach is very similar to my business plan. Their formula for encouraging an increase in the use of concrete had been to concentrate on its varied uses: architectural cladding, concrete roof tiles, paving stones and pipes, to mention but a few. They have now gone past growth and are into consolidation."

Cox adds that concrete in the US has maintained a good competitive edge for many decades.

As well as visiting the Builders' Show in Las Vegas - the US equivalent to Interbuild - Cox found time to get an update on the rebuilding of Ground Zero in New York.

The replacement structure for WTC7 will be a 70- to 80-storey high-rise building. The ground to 4th floors will have a reinforced concrete frame, while the 5th and 6th floors will comprise concrete encased steelwork. The rest will be a steel frame with a lightweight fire protection and a concrete core will run all the way through the building.

"It starts with a concrete base and goes on to steel," explains Cox. "The architects and engineers see a concrete core as a safe haven for people to run to in the case of an emergency."

Increase in concrete's popularity

Cox believes this is an example of how steel's hold on the US market is being broken by the increase in concrete's popularity.

Nonetheless, there is more of the engineer than the marketing animal in him to be anything but frank. "I believe in the best solution for the engineer," he says.

So how does the new organisation intend to best serve the construction industry?

According to Cox, the prime aim of the new organisation is to help designers and constructors get the best out of concrete.

Rather than be perceived merely as a marketing tool, the new body will comprise technical advisors who will be on hand to talk through any problems, challenges or limitations that architects and engineers might have with concrete, be it a thermal, acoustic, durability or technical issue. Services will include a rapid response helpline, an education and training resource, as well as the management of research and development in concrete.

Cox says the body, which will be operational by September will work in the interests of all those involved in the design and use of concrete, whether it is the client, architect, civil and structural engineer or housebuilder.

However, anyone wishing to buy concrete and/or cement will not be able to use the helpline as a shopping service.

"We are not selling it - the purpose of the organisation is an educational one. Even if someone wanted to buy something from us, they would not be able to do so. It would be useless if anyone tried to order 20m3 of ready-mix, because we could not deliver it."

The development director is also keen to emphasise that it will not be a purely London-based operation. "This is not just going to be based in the Thames Valley. We will have regional offices," explains Cox. "An architect in Manchester should be entitled to local advice."

By working with the Berkshire-based Concrete Society, the new body's central helpline will respond to the initial enquiries, before passing callers to the relevant expert, no matter where they are in the country. "They will deal with the queries on site," adds Cox.

When asked if he feels the Concrete Society might feel its nose has been put out of joint by the new venture - up until now it has been the central source of industry information - Cox laughs. "Everyone feels threatened by me," he says, before adding that the new organisation is intended to be a recreation of the former Slough-based Cement and Concrete Association.

"It had been a world authority on teaching about the uses of concrete and cement," he explains.

Funded only by cement manufacturers, the association became defunct when the common price for cement agreement ended.

"There needed to be competition so all the manufacturers dropped their prices," explains Cox.

So what is to say that the same thing will not happen to the new organisation? "It will be funded by 15 very large companies in the industry as opposed to an industry levy," says Cox, refusing to give their names. "They have demonstrated their long-term commitment to funding the new body."

One of the initiative's sponsoring companies is RMC, whose managing director Mike Halling was instrumental in getting Concrete Thinking off the ground.

The industry's focus

Halling recalls a discussion some five-to-six years ago that he had with Bob Taylor of Pioneer and Keith Brian of Topmix about the industry's focus.

"We realised that we had spent many years being internally focused and that substitute markets were getting ahead of us," says Halling. "We were really just responding to enquiries asÊopposed to being proactive."

This was not limited to one part of the sector. Halling points out the same also applied to cement, pre-cast concrete and ready-mixed concrete.

Responding to this, Keith Brian, as chairman of the Ready Mix Bureau at the time, produced a report that prompted major players in the industry to launch Concrete Thinking.

"We are now onÊa programme to fight back against substitute products," says Halling bullishly. With Cox on board ("poacher turned gamekeeper", adds Halling) he believes the industry has now got its act together.

Speaking of money, how does Cox respond to jibes from the steel industry that in recent months the concrete sector has not invested enough in research?

"I can set the record straight," he says. "A lot of research in concrete has been done but not written up. It went straight from research to codes. When I first joined I questioned the lack of publications."

"The concrete industry would be delighted to take millions of pounds from the steel industry for research," adds Cox pugnaciously, who, like a true convert, has taken on concrete's cause with zeal. n