Taking the Pulse of Processors, In 30 Seconds (Or Less)
Participate in our semi-monthly email survey aimed at gauging business conditions.
In these times of economic uncertainty, we think it’s a good idea to periodically gauge the mood of our audience—the plastics processor—as part of our ongoing effort to get closer to our readers and the issues they confront every day.
With that in mind, please let me introduce you to the Processors’ Pulse.
Every two months, we’ll be emailing a random selection of our subscribers a link to a simple online survey form asking a few questions about their feelings about overall business conditions, the economy in general, and what their buying plans are for the future. Please be on the lookout for it. These online surveys are very easy to fill out. This one will take you 30 seconds at most.
We conducted the first of these surveys two weeks ago. We got back replies from 224 processors.
Here are the highlights:
•On the economy in general, 58% of respondents indicated they had a more favorable view of things than they did a month before. Of those, about 51% said they were “somewhat more optimistic,” while another 8% were “much more optimistic.”
•More specifically about their own business, an encouraging 71% reported being more optimistic than they were in the prior month. Of those 57% indicated feeling “somewhat more optimistic” and another 14% “much more optimistic.”
•Where future investments are concerned, nearly 60% of the processors who responded to the survey indicated they plan on buying capital equipment within the next 12 months. Some 27% of those indicated that they were “very likely” to do so.
I am particularly delighted with that last piece of information, which bodes well for the health of our plastics industry. Of course, like most people, I am a lot better at spending other people’s money than my own, but these results indicate to me that most processors have finally realized that technology is the key to unlock opportunities to complete on a global basis. Embracing technology will help the North American plastics-processing market to develop not just products, but solutions to problems people didn’t even know they had.
So if you see that survey come your way, please take half a minute to click on the survey link and fill it out.
