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Sigma Coatings

How do you shape a new standard for your market?

You could easily call Sigma Coatings a titan in the paints market. The company has been supplying top-quality and high-grade paints to professional painters since the 18th century. Yet Sigma Coatings still faces strong competition. It’s not uncommon, for instance, to offer large discounts to the market for professional paints. Sigma Coatings wants to distinguish itself in an unusual way. However, this leading company is often being copied. Together with Six Fingers, Sigma Coatings therefore developed a new concept. One that is distinct and defensible. And completely innovative for Sigma Coatings itself: instead of B2B, the comp-any is now concentrating for the first time on B2C.

The results

Customer review 8.9

New business model

From B2B to B2C

The openness and the ‘just do it’ attitude was truly distinctive.

Before we started, we really had no idea at all that we were going to do something completely innovative. Before we started working together and saw the project proposal, not everything was clear, but despite that we were fairly confident. We were looking for an innovative concept for a marketing campaign, but we gradually discovered through the process that we actually needed a new business model. But see what we came up with – Sigma paintr. And that is the result of a closely mentored process. The openness and the ‘just do it’ attitude was truly distinctive. Six Fingers is not pompous like some other consultancies. What’s more, the size of the company is a real plus point, as it’s great to get to know them personally.

Margot Klerkx, International Marketing Sigma Coatings at PPG Industries
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A ground-breaking new platform on the paint market

We paid attention, listened and observed. Not only to the Dutch market, but also in Belgium and Germany. We discovered all the uses, expectations and problems on the paint market. And within other sectors, we learned about new business models and partnerships. We listened to consumers, who were often afraid to outsource painting jobs. After all, you really want a professional who will do the best and most pleasing job. But how do you assess that? And how do you make the choice that best fits you? All experiences lead us to the perfect answer: Sigma paintr., a platform on which consumers and painters come together and where the consumer takes the reins in their own hands.

Sigma paintr. gives Sigma Coatings its powerful distinctiveness

Sigma paintr. is the new standard within the branch for painters. The dynamic platform saves time and takes the hassle away from both consumers and professionals. Sigma paintr. enables customers to organise everything online. That seemed to us to be nothing more than normal in this digital era. We elaborated Lean Start-up methodologies into a platform where customers themselves can draw up their own quotation online and determine when the painting work takes place. So consumers gain greater control. But there’s less hassle for painters too: paintr. allows them to accept jobs without having to first visit the customer or draw up quotations. It’s really that simple. The platform has already become a major innovation within its branch. But we’re nowhere near finished. We assess critical success factors and are continually in discussion with consumers to further improve Sigma paintr. After all, Sigma Coatings puts its customers at the centre.