The future of a part of the ceramic industry will not necessarily be in manufacturing more, but in being able to offer more value, more differentiation, and more capacity for customisation.

For decades, a large part of the ceramic industry has measured its strength in quantitative terms: production capacity, millions of square meters, export volume, or invoicing.
It was logical. For a long time, growing meant producing more. But … the market is changing.

In architecture, interior design and international distribution, producing a lot is still important, but it is no longer always enough to differentiate yourself. Another issue is becoming more and more meaningful. How much value are we able to generate with each square meter we manufacture?

Ceramics have reached extraordinary levels of efficiency, technology, and quality. The next step is to transform part of this industrial capacity into differentiation capacity. Because when numerous manufacturers can offer technically excellent products, the competitive advantage is no longer just in manufacturing well. It starts to be in manufacturing something really relevant to a customer, a market or a specific project.

From volume to value

This development is particularly interesting for companies that are committed to specialisation, flexibility, and adaptability. Not all companies need to do everything. Sometimes, knowing exactly what you do particularly well, and for whom you do it, can generate much more value than having a larger catalog.

Customers are no longer just looking for “product”. They seek differentiation, identity, agility, and responsiveness. For this reason, perhaps we should start measuring success not only by the square meters sold, but also by the added value that we are able to incorporate into each of them.

The new luxury is the power to choose

It’s also changing our perception of luxury. For a long time we have associated it with expensive materials, sophisticated finishes or economic exclusivity. However, in contemporary design, luxury is increasingly related to something apparently simple:the possibility of choice. Choose a format. A certain shape. A specific colour. A finish. A texture. A graphic. A solution developed for a specific project.

Exclusivity thus ceases to depend solely on price and begins to be related to the ability to create something that did not exist before. For the ceramics industry, in my opinion, this represents a huge opportunity.

The same technology that allows us to manufacture large quantities with enormous precision can also be used to produce diversity and personalisation. It is not a question of renouncing industrial efficiency, but of putting it at the service of a greater creative capacity.

From catalogues to collaboration

Probably the most important change has to start even before manufacturing. It has to start with our way of selling. For years, the industry’s business conversation has often begun with an affirmation: “these are our collections.” The client observes and selects from the available options but certain markets and projects begin to have to ask a different question: “What do you need?”

The distance between the two phrases seems small, but it represents two very different business models. The first leads to the catalogue. The second leads to collaboration.

A distributor can search for an exclusive collection. An architect, a concrete geometry. A designer, a specific colour. A manufacturer, a product that completes its own offer. In these cases, the manufacturer is no longer just a supplier and becomes an industrial and creative partner. This is precisely the philosophy that we understand at Decocer under the Tailor Made concept: listen, adapt, develop, and turn an idea into an industrially viable product.

Marketing also has to evolve. For a long time we have mainly communicated products: collections, formats, colours, photographs, and novelties. But we may need to start communicating something more powerful: possibilities. The possibility of creating a piece. Modify a format. Work on a finish. Develop a colour. Tailor a solution to the needs of a market or project. In this context, the catalog ceases to be the end of the conversation and becomes simply the beginning.

The small format is particularly interesting because its relationship with colour, joint, relief, enamel and geometry offers an enormous compositional capacity. A small modification can completely transform the personality of a surface. Therefore, more than a matter of size, the small format can be understood as a tool for differentiation.

A new industrial capacity

Perhaps we should also broaden our definition of industrial capacity, since for decades we have associated it with the possibility of producing a lot. In the future we should also associate it with the ability to produce something different. Have a catalogue, but don’t be limited by it. Be efficient, but also flexible. Manufacture our own product, but be able to collaborate with distributors, architects, designers, and manufacturers.

Spanish ceramics has technology, knowledge, tradition, creativity and enormous international experience. The challenge now may be to turn all that knowledge into even more value. Because the future will not only belong to those who can manufacture more; it will also belong to those who know how to better understand what each customer needs and, at the same time, are professional and sensitive enough to turn that need into their product.

Perhaps the real leap is not to manufacture more square metres, but to ensure that each square metre brings more design, more identity, and more differentiation. In short, going from selling square metres to selling more possibilities or, in other words, more options to dream about.

By Fran Raya, Director of Marketing and Communication, Decocer for Vigilancer.

Source: https://vigilancer.es/