Composite versus panels: could panel doors' days be numbered? john adams explains

Every product has a life cycle and most follow a similar pattern - a small minority of people (nowadays called early adopters) accept the new product and test market it for the majority.

If it is successful everyone else wants a slice of the action, but it's usually the early adopters that gain most of the benefits.

If it fails, and most new products do, it will drift into obscurity and be consigned to the history books, like the Sinclair C-5.

Truly revolutionary products create their own niches and often, new markets. The Walkman for example, didn't replace anything. It was a truly innovative product that introduced a generation to the concept of personal music on the move.

Today, the tape version may have disappeared, but the concept lives on, evolving through the introduction of (several) new technologies (CD, Mini-disc, iPod).

As popularity has increased, so have sales. Higher manufacturing volumes help reduce prices to the level at which acceptance of the concept is almost universal.

The panel door

What on earth has this got to do with the door market you may ask? Well, in the beginning there was the door panel, an innovative concept that has now evolved through the application of technology to create the composite door - leaving the original panel by modern standards, inefficient, unattractive and largely unloved

The composite door by contrast, is already redefining UK door culture and its dramatic growth is fast approaching universal acceptance in the public housing sector.

How long before we hear ourselves saying (probably in slightly guilty tones) ‘Do you remember when we put white panels into window frames and sold them as doors?'

Private sector homeowners still being offered panels

Now consider the window market, which is already saturated. The majority of homes in this country (including the housing stock owned by local government and housing associations) already have PVC windows. This means that around 7000 organisations across the UK should be looking for other products and opportunities to drive their businesses forward, hence the renewed interest in conservatories and roof-line products, and new-build and social housing markets, to name but a few.

So why aren't these companies falling over themselves to sell composite doors? Why are they still selling inferior panel products and preventing private homeowners from enjoying the same high standards as public sector householders?

And why, when I've spent more than fifteen years selling door products, have I yet to meet anyone who genuinely believes a door panel is the ideal way to make a door?

The reality is they are readily available often ex-stock; they are cost effective and proven over 25 years; they keep out the wind and rain; and almost everyone else sells them.

By comparison, the composite door is still a relatively niche product, at least in the private housing sector.

It has been restricted by two rather crucial factors - price and lead time. However volumes are now reaching critical mass and the number of players has increased to force a more competitive market. The Laird group for example has acquired three composite door businesses with a combined capacity in excess of 2500 doors a week and has a significant investment programme underway to increase this substantially during 2006.