Is it that one? Or them? And who are they anyway? The stone world has never been as divided as it is today. There are those who don’t want to stop dreaming of yesterday, of mechanisms that no longer exist today – death, cemeteries, gravestones, stonemasons! There are those who truly believe that craftsmanship means chiseling by hand, that is, with knots and iron. That was once, it won’t come back. There are those who believe that their stones are only for architects, forgetting that it has always been craftsmen who work with these stones and can make them popular with their customers. And then there are those who are convinced that craftsmen only have a future if they live and breathe craftsmanship: Designing products individually with contemporary means and machines and laying and moving them professionally and expertly for their customers.
These, these and these are all part of today’s stone reality. It is obvious that these, these and these have very different interests. Just stone as a common denominator is – and always has been – too little. This becomes clear wherever these groups meet; at trade fairs, for example. It makes little sense to celebrate what they have in common in the “beautiful world of stone”. Here, what does not belong together comes together. A company that sees architects as its customers can do little with craftsmen, just like a craftsman who is shown stones that he can’t buy after all.
Everyone has to decide for themselves whether they are one of them, one of them or just one of them. Whoever works for or in the world of STEIN has to decide: for them, for them or for them. Today, this is called target group optimization. Supply and demand must match. It makes no sense to offer customers apples when they want pears. The market brings clarity. Customers decide – sooner or later – who they want as a supplier, this one or that one.
Commentary by Willy Hafner from STEIN in July 2013.