The International Monetary Fund said this month that the world economy was on track to shrink for the first time in 60 years by as much as 1.0 percent. It said that recovery from the recession depends in part on stabilizing financial conditions through the injection of economic stimulus spending. But more telling was the view that the key to success was countries being prepared to work together on solutions.

Time is running out for the leaders of the Group of Twenty who are meeting in London this week. The message they might bring back home with them after the summit is of a deeper recession before things improve.

So what to do when faced with the very real chance of dealing with the worst downturn since the 1930”s depression?  That was a question we asked ourselves recently at MultiTrode. Just like in any other business involved with infrastructure, a slow down in the economic spending (despite money being made available for shovel-ready projects) will affect our customers and in turn “business as usual” revenue.

Our Chairman and company founder Craig Parkinson had the best answer. This is a man who has seen a few booms and busts in the twenty two years that MultiTrode has been around. So we always listen when he has advice.   Craig’s view was that we should do what we have always done in the past – go and talk to our customers.

He said it sounds simple but so few companies do it well because they are unable to stop thinking about themselves long enough to truly hear what the customer is saying. Now I am not going to give a lesson in Marketing 101 here. But the advice Craig gave was right on the money.

The folk at MultiTrode have always enjoyed a close relationship with the industry so it was not hard to start asking pointed questions about what things are keeping people awake at night. The response has been great. We are getting a lot of feedback and expect more as we continue to involve ourselves in the fresh issues.

The  biggest learning? Remember that we only focus on water and waste water pump station solutions so our questions can be quite targeted. From all our interviews with customers, experts and intermediaries we now know that the smart operations managers are focusing on three key areas. They realise that stimulus packages aside there will be an effect on operating and cap ex budgets so they are refining their operations, chasing station asset optimization and only investing in cost effective solutions.

They know that energy efficiencies of up to 15% are available at the pump station. They see that out-of-date lift stations can make up 60% of all emergency call outs and gobble up the bulk of “on call” penalty rates. They also know that the regulators will not be giving anyone a holiday.

Pump stations have long been overlooked by managers but today they see this area of their operation as a real mine of budget improvements. Our challenge is to keep listening like Craig did over twenty years ago to help them.

Wayne Patterson, CEO Industry