Festool USA, a regular participant of the JLC Live Conference, held an additional event at this year’s conference. After introducing Festool Connect in 2012, they’ve now taken it one step further to act as a source of expertise for the remodeling industry by holding the State of The Industry.

So, what is the State of The Industry (SOTI)? It’s an in-depth analysis of the remodeling industry to identify key findings that are helpful for remodeling business owners and employees alike. More specifically, SOTI looks at data points relating to housing starts, remodeling activity, types of projects homeowners undertook during the economic downturn and why, forecasts for the industry, and strategies for small businesses to grow.

Using assistance from expert research analysts, Festool looked at a number of different reports including the Residential Remodeling Index (Hanley Wood) and Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University), and pulled the most relevant information for remodeling businesses.

Here are a few highlights from the presentation:

• Home Improvement Spending Reached $300 Billion in 2012 – 2nd highest in last decade

• During the economic downturn, the number of high ROI projects (Window, Door Replacements) were least affected

• 400,000 New ‘Replacement & Remodeling’ projects forecast for 2013

In addition to these and additional points, Festool went through strategies for small remodeling businesses to grow, and gave examples on how to implement these strategies. The presentation also covered demographics by age and region as to where the highest opportunities are during economic up and downturns.

At the conclusion of the presentation, there was a short Q & A that involved a number of questions relating to detailed points of the presentation. But one question stood out when someone asked “Why is Festool doing this? Aren’t you guy just supposed to make tools?”, Michael Williams, VP of Marketing for Festool USA, replied “Working with tools is lifestyle, and we want to do whatever we can to make the jobs of our customers and fans easier. With the State of The Industry, we are providing a tool, in presentation form, that will allow remodeling businesses to forecast expectations so that they can better prepare their businesses.”

To read the presentation in full and get all the research from SOTI, download the file here. In addition to the presentation, SOTI attendees walked away with a handout that highlighted the key findings. And now that handout is available for download as well.