TMCnet News
Webinar Spots Industry Growth Niches(Targeted News Service Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 3 -- The Textile Rental Services Association issued the following news: With GDP expected to hit 2.5% and sweet spots in the economy that have bolstered textile services in recent years likely to continue flourishing in 2014, expansion of food and beverage (F&B) and healthcare markets will drive near-term industry growth, TRSA's most recent webinar predicted. "Strategic Analysis of the Industry's Markets" reached this conclusion on Dec. 19 by examining business expansion in these laundry customer businesses and correlating GDP growth with historic sales increases in the niche laundry operations serving them. In the most recent two years when GDP was around 2.5% (2006 and 2012), F&B specialists' sales growth (12.7% and 8.9%, respectively) was higher than healthcare, industrial or mixed operations as compiled in TRSA's Industry Performance Report. In the weakest economy of the last eight years (2009, when GDP was down 2.4%), healthcare laundry specialists grew modestly (2.5%) as all other segments declined. This niche also grew more impressively than the others in the 2010-2011 economic recovery, expanding 4.8% and 7.7%. But F&B had closed the gap in 2011, growing almost as much (7.4%) and overtaking healthcare in 2012, when the latter grew just 4.3%. The webinar, presented by Ken Koepper, TRSA's marketing director, described key trends in these customers' business conditions to offer possible explanations for this shift and identified niches in these industries likely to foster textile services growth in upcoming months. A similar analysis was given for hospitality (hotel/lodging) markets. The presentation also covered the industrial segment, noting pleasant surprises in November's federal government report on U.S. employment and optimism in Robert W. Baird & Co.'s December survey of independent textile services operators. Both point to near-term expansion of industrial laundries, which have grown in just four of the last seven years of the TRSA survey. TNS 18DejucosGrace-140107-30FurigayJane-4592802 30FurigayJof (c) 2014 Targeted News Service |