More market transparency and cost reductions by anonymous comparison

Against the backdrop of a highly competitive market, no business enterprise can afford not to search for and take advantage of potentials for savings. This is particularly true for the steel market due to its rapid and volatile price developments in recent years. For that reason, AMMPL is now offering a new benchmarking service to its member companies, „Benchmarking Steel Prices“.

Benchmarking is a very useful tool to held identify the “best practice”, and thus potentials for savings, outside of proprietary structures or outside of one’s own industry. AMMPL performs this benchmarking service in neutral and confidential fashion.

How you can benefit

• You recognize your potential for cost reduction at a glance.
• You determine your status on the basis of genuine, objective comparison figures.
• You create more market transparency for your decision making.

Project description

Benchmarking is performed for three different types of steel products:

• Carbon steel: cold/hot rolled strip, broad strip, plate
• Stainless steel: cold/hot rolled strip, broad strip, plate
• Carbon steel long products: concrete steel, slabs, pipes, billets

Product prices, in turn, are broken down by:

• Basic price
• Surcharge for grade
• Surcharge for dimension
• Surcharge for pickling
• Other surcharges

The basic price plus surcharges results in the effective price. It is important that this benchmarking is not done with list prices, but with bare net prices, i.e. effective prices minus discounts. A sample data entry mask is enclosed. After entry of data (prices, quantities, surcharges) by the participant, these data are input in a central database. After completion of a plausibility check, the data are evaluated and the result is made available to participants in encrypted form. With your personal evaluation you will receive:

• the best price at 100%
• your own price as index
• the average price of all participants as index
• the target price as index (= best price for comparable quantities)
• deviation in % between your price and the best comparable price

This applies to the basic price as well as respective surcharges and the effective price. Benchmarking is performed for the first time based on prices of the 4th quarter 2005.

Conditions of participation:

• Company membership in AMMPL
• Participants must make certain that data are neither disclosed nor distributed to third parties
• Names of participants are not disclosed in order to guarantee the highest levels of confidentiality
• Participation fee per type of steel: € 1,280.00