Zurn Elkay Water Solutions's

We evaluate our competitive position in our markets based on available market data, relevant benchmarks compared to our relative group and industry trends. We generally do not participate in segments of our served markets that have been commoditized or in applications that do not require differentiation based on product quality, reliability and innovation. We serve a broad and diverse array of commercial and industrial end markets with solid fundamental long-term growth characteristics. We believe there continues to be long-term growth potential in our markets.

The markets in which we participate are relatively fragmented with competitors across a broad range of industries, sectors, and product lines. Although competition exists across all of our businesses, we do not believe that any one competitor directly competes with us across all of our product lines. We believe our served markets are growing long term at relatively strong rates, and that the growing demand for water conservation, quality, hygienic solutions and safety can potentially support market growth above that of overall United States industrial production. We believe that we can continue to grow our platform long term at rates above the growth rate of the overall market and the growth rate of our competition, by focusing our efforts and resources towards end markets that have above-average growth characteristics.
We believe the areas in which we compete are tied to growth in commercial and institutional construction, as well as, to a lesser extent, waterworks. We believe these areas have significant long-term growth fundamentals. Historically, the commercial, institutional and waterworks construction sectors have been more stable and less vulnerable to down-cycles than the residential construction industry. Compared with residential construction cycles, downturns in waterworks, commercial and institutional construction have been shorter and less severe, and upturns have lasted longer and had higher peaks in terms of spending as well as units and square footage. In addition, we believe water management manufacturers with innovative products, like ours, are able to grow at a faster pace than the broader waterworks, commercial, and institutional construction markets, as well as mitigate cyclical downturns in market growth.
The industrys specification-driven end-markets require manufacturers to work closely with local engineers, architects, contractors and builders to design specific applications on a project-by-project basis. As a result, building and maintaining relationships with architects, engineers, contractors and builders, who specify products for use in construction projects, and having flexibility in design and product innovation are critical to compete effectively in these markets. Companies with a strong network of such relationships have a competitive advantage. Specifically, it has been our experience that, once an engineer, contractor, builder, or architect has specified our product with satisfactory results, they often will continue to use our products in future projects.