BCF Annual Conference 2024: Great Expectations and Achievements

Publicity from the British Coatings Federation is often lavish with praise for the work that Tom Bowtell and his team accomplish from their Coventry headquarters. In May I had the chance to find out for myself exactly the high standards they could achieve when I attended the BCF’s Annual Conference.

I could only conclude that it was very well-deserved. This was an excellent event from start to finish, populated with a variety of great speakers, and if anyone thought conferences were boring, then let me assure you that this one was not.

Economic Awareness

The opening session set the scene with a broad economic overview (Andrea Boltho, Oxford Economics) and it was especially valuable that the global picture was covered, highlighting major economic powers, the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Gaza conflict. A few pertinent takeaways from this talk included:
• European manufacturing is not growing and in Germany it is regressing. Germany is beset by several problems: restrictive fiscal policy, low activity in high-tech areas and high-tech exports and heavy industry in retreat.  Germany is also dependent on exports to China, energy from Russia and defence from the USA, all of which make it vulnerable at the moment.
• India is becoming the motor of global economic growth in the way that China was 20 years ago, but not quite at the same level as China.
• The USA is now leading the mature economies in economic growth. The prospect of a second Trump term may be more of a geopolitical threat rather than an economic one.

Although there was a ready appreciation of how gloomy and uncertain much of the economic outlook is, Boltho highlighted the many positives open to industry such as robotics, artificial intelligence, sustainability etc.

Despite the dryness of economics, much of this talk was delivered with great humor and more than a touch of self-deprecation, the speaker having an outstanding record on forecasting what happens from one year to the next.

The remainder of the background-setting first session included an overview of the UK political scene (David Park, BCF) and the audience would have appreciated that only the night before, Rishi Sunak called a snap general election for July 4, 2024. 

This talk reviewed recent Tory governments and what they have done for Britain, but it also mentioned the likelihood of future cuts to spending “baked in” to the current economic plans, and the fact that the expected Labour government would be better for sustainability, green energy and green technology.

The final talk in this session was fairly short (Roald Johannsen, CEPE) and briefly championed the work of CEPE and its renewed vision and mission. It also highlighted the forthcoming EU elections, and said that although the EU’s Green Deal may seem “far-fetched”, it was the right thing for industry.

Education on Artificial Intelligence

The post-elevenses session was dedicated to innovation and congratulations to the BCF on finding probably the coolest conference speaker ever for this (Sherin Mathew, AI Tech UK).

Empowerment should be an exciting word for anyone, and those in industry no exception where there are profits and efficiencies to be enhanced. Industry is now on the verge of an AI gold rush, almost ten years since AI capabilities became available through cloud computing in 2015 and all industries are embracing it – retail, healthcare, telecommunications, policing – even confectionery! 

This talk presented the essentials of AI in terms of accumulated data (logs, processes, simulations, analytics) and what can be achieved with it in terms of automation and making business smarter. 

Mathew spoke of empowering employees when their jobs are boring, and of customer engagement, process enhancement, optimization and the transformation of ‘legacy systems” where long-established or traditional methods could be updated into smarter processes.

The second presentation in this session (Fhaheen Khan, Make UK), complemented the first very well. It reviewed digitalization and considered various factors that retard companies when it comes to digital innovation.

Industry faces many challenges such as energy costs, skills shortages, an ageing workforce and few apprentices. But opportunities for industry lie in robotics and automation, especially in areas such as supply chain optimization, quality assurance and machinery.

Concluding this second session was a talk (Prof. Allan Matthews, University of Manchester) which knitted together the concepts of robotics, digitalization and coatings design as part of the design-for-manufacturing (DFM) process, underscoring the importance of coatings as a functional and integral part of any product that should be considered at the beginning of the design process, and not at the end.

Expectations and Achievements

In the afternoon, an interactive and lively panel discussion was hosted on the topic of engaging future participation in the coating sector (Andrew Roser, AkzoNobel; Molly Kershaw, PPG; Tim Doggett, Chemical Business Association and Helen Anderton, INX International and co-ordinated by Steve Bennett, Business of Science).

It focused on the widespread struggle of recruiting young people into the paint and coatings sector, prompting one delegate to paraphrase “paint is not sexy.” The conclusion of this discussion soon emerged as the importance of targeting children with paint and chemistry, in schools at primary school age, long before they have started to narrow down their career-limiting options. Younger painters and decorators are also needed! 

Meanwhile, at the career defining stage, telling comments abounded on the approaches and attitudes of younger people in terms of their expectations of what a job should give them (“entitlement”), yet without very much real idea of what it takes to earn it.

Yet, potential younger employees could be motivated into action by their interests in the environment and on climate change, persuading them of the differences they could make to the world. They could also be targeted by involvement with the more exciting approaches offered through AI and robotics.

If the younger generation has great expectations of what industry should provide them with, then the middle-aged generation of the delegates were held in expectant thrall by the keynote speaker (Toni Kent, former Microsoft manager, speaker and writer) who spoke personally and frankly of her own journey of social mobility.

I am sure I was not the only person who was on the edge of their seat wondering what Kent was going to say next, as she covered her astonishing rise from humble roots to working in a lucrative job at Microsoft. This was not an easy life path, but it drew on the importance role models, the right people helping the young in their early careers, seeing their potential and giving recruits something to aim for, especially with vocational qualifications and transferable skills. We could be persuaded that a degree was not everything!

BCF CEO Tom Bowtell had given himself quite a tough act to follow and his presentation concluded the event with a review of what the BCF has accomplished in 2023. He mentioned the ongoing soft sales of coatings in the UK sector, and despite Brexit the UK is still a major net exporter of paints and coatings to Europe – chiefly to the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, USA, Italy, Türkiye, Spain and France.

During the talk many long-term BCF members were highlighted with their 25-year memberships, and a special award was made to Dominic Myland, whose family company Mylands had been a 50-year member. There were mentions of the BCF’s Essential Coatings campaign launched in November, the Road to Net Zero and work to demystify eco paints, sold as they are through ‘greenwashing’.

Much work remains ahead in the regulatory sector and as the BCF nears the end of its own 2020-25 roadmap, its plans will incorporate more work on equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I).

Overall, it was an amazing event, hosted and coordinated superbly by Sharon Harte (managing director, Dacrylate Paints and president, BCF). Although much of it was quite general in nature, any company in any industry could have benefited from it.

Strangely, in these competitive times, ideas that companies should be in more conversation and less in avowed competition with each other surfaced on more than one occasion. Delegates should have left this enjoyable event with plenty of food for thought.