Another WEFTEC in the books, and it was great to see so many Amane clients and friends of the firm in Chicago this year.

With an estimated 22,000 visitors attending the conference this year, the absolute turnout at the conference fell a bit short of expectations, but most exhibitors I spoke with were very happy with the level of traffic at their individual booths. The heavy presence in the hall of attendees representing private equity firms also testified to the continued interest of investors in the water and wastewater space, so its safe to assume that the active deal environment will not wind down anytime soon.

The major trend to report this year is probably – that there really was no major new trend to report.  Digital solutions are now a familiar part of the WEFTEC landscape, and so attendees are much more interested in seeing the strides being made in the performance and acceptance of these offerings, rather than being surprised by totally new products or systems. This is perhaps the best news for providers of these solutions could possibly hope for: that they are slowly coming to be regarded as “business as usual” that every system should consider, rather than exotic investments.

A number of observers commented that they saw a continuation of the shift to service-based offerings, rather than pure equipment/hardware sales. With companies’ growing emphasis on gaining and maintaining longer term customer relationships, and in ensuring repeatable revenue streams, there is every reason to expect this shift to continue into the future (which will be welcome news to the aforementioned investors!).

About WEFTEC 2019

WEFTEC is the Water Environment Federation’s Technical Exhibition and Conference, the largest annual water quality event in the world. WEFTEC took place on 21 – 25 September, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois, offering water quality professionals from around the world with water quality education, training opportunities and a large exhibition floor showcasing some of the most cutting-edge technologies in the field.

Read more: https://2019.weftecevent.org/