Month 1 of 2016 is already complete and I think it’s fair to say that it’s been a frantic start to the year on an industry level, if not on a business level but general industry activity at the very least. So, here’s a quick look back at how we kicked off the New Year.

A slow start

It’s almost as if the industry had a bit of a hangover. There was a sense that the industry was very slowly easing itself back into the normal routine. No rip roaring on the start as a whole.

As the month went by, I felt like there was finally this realisation that business in 2016 was going to be a challenging one. That growth wasn’t going to be easy to come by and that the economic tide was starting to turn and things were getting a bit choppy again.

To gauge sentiment among the industry, I set up a series of polls to try and decipher how different parts of the industry felt right now. The first to reach 100 votes was the installers poll. Click here to view the full table of results. But generally I thought the votes were fairly mixed, with 39% of installers saying they were reasonably optimistic about 2016. Positive yes, but not a landslide by any means.

By the end of the month I saw things begin to pick up back at base here and around the industry. We’re not breaking records right now, and trading conditions will remain tough throughout this year. Hopefully February brings a bit of a rebound.

M & A activity

Only a couple of weeks into the new trading year and a hefty takeover was announced by Elumatec as they confirmed that Emmegi Group holding company Cifin was to complete their acquisition.

Click here to read the full post

As far as acquisitions go, this was a big one to start 2016 and brings together some real front runners in the wider fenestration sector.

Given the state of affairs within the industry right now, I suspect that there will be a few high profile mergers and acquisitions throughout 2016.

A second look

All sorts of subjects were covered on DGB in January. Here’s a second chance to catch up on some of the most well read and eye catching content published over the past month:

DGB breaks 3 of it’s own records

Finally, I am very happy to report that this website broke three of it’s own records during January:

I have been working hard on making sure I keep the quality of the content on DGB high, to keep people interested and to keep them coming back to read my daily updates. I’ve also been working hard on the subscriptions side of things, to boost the number of industry professionals who get daily DGB sent to their inbox.

I would like to think that this has contributed to these fantastic figures and the breaking of 3 of the sites records in just one month. Thanks to everyone who read, commented and shared DGB in January. Here’s to a fab Feb!

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