Many people have returned from their summer vacations heartened by the news that Germany released some truly remarkable growth figures. In July we commented on the VDMA’s confidence, but we, along with much of the rest of the world, were surprised by the scale of the mid-August numbers which showed an 8% German growth rate, the fastest since re-unification.
This has raised optimism around the whole of the Eurozone, where growth is currently forecast at one percent. Of course, this conceals a wide divergence of performance across the continent, but it also offers the realistic expectation that other parts of Europe will benefit from export led growth to Germany.
Meanwhile the US appears to be treading water in growth terms. This has not stopped Caterpillar from re-hiring and expanding their manufacturing capabilities. However, across the US as a whole, longer-term concerns for the national economy remain.
One positive benefit of holidays is the opportunity of time to read. I picked up “The Puritan Gift” by Kenneth and William Hopper. It’s an outstanding book detailing the history of American managerial culture from the 1630s to the present day. It highlights the need for teamwork, long term perspective, low debt and continuous improvement – values that strike a chord with us here at OATS – in the US and in the developing Asian markets.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, Asia continues to lead global growth. India exceeded Germany’s figures, with 8.8% growth, although not quite as fast as China’s 10.8%. What is particularly impressive about India’s figures is that domestic growth is driving activity. For example, car sales are up 38% and manufacturing up 12%. Other key domestic sectors, such as mining, transport and communication also saw significant growth.
So, for many of us, it’s back to work with renewed optimism as we develop strategies for managing growth based on a global economy in varying states of recovery.
In challenging times, improving the customer offer is an essential issue for all businesses. OATS is certainly not alone in this, but it is the reason why we have re-evaluated and significantly upgraded our EARLMAX B2B Survey Master product. They are enhancements focused on helping distributors and B2B marketers improve their services to customers – and streamline the whole selling process.
We look forward to telling you about other exciting developments over the next few months.
Should you wish to find out more about how to upgrade to the EARLMAX Survey Master solutions, or for information about any of the OATS lubricants database solutions, please don’t hesitate to contact your OATS sales representative and, as always, if you have any news or comments then contact us at bulletin@oats.co.uk.
Sebastian Crawshaw, Chairman OATS