Being from a small country lends Donovan Group an important advantage in the American construction industry: its products are developed and refined in what is possibly the perfect prototype market, right here in New Zealand.
CEO Matt Woodley has recently returned from a tour of steel building manufacturers in North America.
“The American economy is huge,” he says. “There are more people in metro Houston than in the whole of New Zealand. The entire New Zealand economy is the same size as that of Kentucky – which is one of the smallest economies in America.”
“In America there is a $360 billion dollar market for portal frame buildings. It’s very big, optimistic and well organised,” he says.
Donovan Group is poised to begin supplying its tech platforms to this market and has joined a number of associations including the Metal Building Manufacturing Association where it has an engineer on a technical committee.
“This market has been tremendously welcoming and curious about what we can offer,” he says. “They have opened their doors and helped us to see how they operate. We can see the market is highly efficient but they don’t all have the technology to be as efficient as our operations here in New Zealand albeit on a smaller scale. By licensing our Intellectual Property, our brand and our technology to key partners in North America, we can help businesses there enjoy the same benefits we do in New Zealand.”
“Our visits and our work with our American partners help us to understand more about their operations and the channel to market. We can see how and where our design and visualisation software platforms can offer most benefit, and how we can work to support American businesses that can benefit from what we have.”