Wavin Group (www.wavin.com) provides plastic pipe systems (the name derives from a contraction of the words WAter and VINyl chloride). Its products are used in the building industry for all aspects of water management, plumbing, heating and drainage. Headquartered in Zwolle in the Netherlands (where it was founded in 1955), it is the leading global supplier of these systems and solutions in Europe, with a presence in 25 European countries and 40 manufacturing sites. Outside Europe, it has a global network of agents, licensees and distributors. It employs about 5500 people and has an annual turnover in the region of €1.2 billion. Since 2012, Wavin is part of the group Orbia, a global supplier of polymer, material and infrastructure solutions. 

Wavin's industrial brands (including WAVIN, OSMA, Hep2O, Hepworth) span products and systems, designed and produced for a wide range of applications including gas, water, sewer systems, building, land drainage and irrigation, and cable ducting. It holds over 300 patents on products and processes and has a strong commitment to innovation as part of its overall business strategy; the group aims to achieve 20 per cent of its income from products less than five years old. Innovation also supports Wavin's sustainability priorities, the company introducing technologies to ensure that its plastic pipes contain over 50 per cent recycled materials. It is ISO 9001 qualified and its products meet the requirements of BS EN ISO 140-1 and BS EN 1329-1 for non-pressure underground drainage pipes, and soil and waste discharge pipes, respectively. 

Wavin provides complete solutions for customers, backed by a dedicated sales force with full marketing, technical, sales and operational infrastructure. And there is a very extensive range of different end-users for Wavin products, including: 

-- the jobbing builder replacing a set of gutters, fitting a new kitchen, building a new bathroom or repairing cracked drains below ground; 

--the small building contractor refurbishing a whole house or building from scratch; 

-- large building contractors engaged in a whole residential housing development; 

-- engineering companies engaged in pipelining repairs or laying public access cable networks; and 

-- large civil and mechanical engineering companies building infrastructure projects such as whole water treatment plants. 

However, end-users typically are not able to buy products from Wavin directly. Rather, products are purchased through a range of merchants. This makes relationships with the distributors very important for the company (and some of these companies are very large in their own right, e.g. Saint-Gobain, Travis Perkins). Of course, this does not mean that the company has no contact with many end-users. For example, Wavin's strength in specification appeals to national house builders (such as Redrow and Taylor Wimpey). At the same time, while the company is interested in demand for its products in the round, with its sales team it recognizes that it may need to talk to clients and their designers about a whole solution, involving an entire range of products configured in the most appropriate way to solve a customer problem. 

  As well as contractors and distributors (and others such as clients, developers, trade jobbers and utility providers) in the marketplace, there are specifier markets that affect whether or not Wavin products are used. Professionals such as architects and structural and mechanical engineers have substantial reference power. Furthermore, high-profile reference projects have substantial value in showcasing Wavin product solutions - the more publicly known and impressive the better. The installation of a new soil and waste plumbing system for La Scala Opera House in Milan that was efficient and reliable was only the starting point. Demonstrating that it was best able to meet the requirements for range completeness and performance in terms of low noise levels swung it for Wavin. Wavin has also provided bespoke underfloor heating for 'The Core' education centre at the Eden Project in Cornwall, sitting alongside the large biomes featured at the attraction, as well as a new five-star Hilton hotel in Bournemouth, UK. 

As well as these highvisibility projects, the company has been involved in reference projects for residential development companies, such as Redrow's upmarket housing project Cranberry Gardens in Cheshire, where the customer was looking for a future-proofed storm management system to protect the luxury homes during both regular and extreme weather conditions. 

The company segmentation strategy continues to develop in order to adapt to changes in the marketplace. Unsurprisingly then, the company engages in category management activities with important customers. After all, when you are one of the biggest manufacturers in the world of industrial plastic pipe systems and other industrial plastics products, you undoubtedly know much more than many of your customers.

 

Based on your knowledge of B2B segmentation, Identify some of the bases that Wavin can use to segment the market. 

Analyze it in detail, you need to combine the information in the above case。

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

Based on the information provided in the case Wavin can use several bases for B2B market segmentation Market segmentation is the process of dividing a market into distinct groups based on specific cri... View the full answer