Over the years as an editor, I have been charged with developing a significant number of lists. I’ve ranked contractors, products, markets, projects and more. It is one of the things magazines do, and there’s a simple reason why: our readers enjoy lists.
In this issue, we offer our annual ranking of the Top Metal Builders. I can tell you from experience that it is one of our most popular articles, and we receive considerable feedback on it. Readers have questions about how to get on the list. They want to know more information about the numbers. And they want more and more and more details. By my thinking, that’s the sign of a good feature. It engages the audience and incites interest and comment.
But lists such as the Top Metal Builders also serve another purpose for the industry. Every year, we get a snapshot of the top players. We can identify potential industry consolidation efforts, successes in increasing market share and companies that are growing fast.
The Top Metal Builders list shows us what the top of the market is doing, and in an industry that is difficult to track-such as metal building-this kind of information is invaluable. The U.S. Census Bureau does not have a specific classification for metal builders. They are grouped in with a number of other standard industry classification (SIC) codes, and raw data is hard to pull out. Any little thing we can do to help our readers understand the industry as a whole is important.
There is an old saying that 80 percent of the work is done by 20 percent of the people. I’m guessing that with an industry as fragmented as the construction industry is in general, and metal building in particular, that the saying probably doesn’t apply to this list. We have no way of knowing specifically what the market share of the top 100 metal builders is because we struggle to know what the total market is.
Nonetheless, there is an important issue here, and that is the trend line. My old high school chemistry teacher told me that the actual weight of something mattered far less than the weight difference from before and after the experiment. In other words, we want to measure the change, and the annual list of Top Metal Builders helps us do that.
What is the change? Simple. It’s growth. The market is growing, and the companies within the market are growing. We may have understood that intuitively, but we can see it specifically with the companies.
Congratulations to the companies listed on the Top Metal Builders for 2013. Your efforts and successes show in your rising to the top.
To read the Top Metal Builder article, click here.
