Crown Cork & Seal — the hard jobs

Win the metal-can work the big three won't bother with

Standard cans are a commodity where the giants win on volume, so a small player competing head-on on price loses, because it can never match their scale.

Fast, flexible plants and application engineers who can tool up for odd can shapes and short runs the volume-focused giants treat as a nuisance.

Serve only the hard jobs — hard-to-hold products, short runs, fast turnarounds — and skip the high-volume commodity work entirely.

1. 01Put plants near customers to turn orders around in days
2. 02Take the short-run, hard-to-fill jobs the big three decline
3. 03Build application-engineering teams to solve odd container problems
4. 04Charge premium prices justified by speed and service
5. 05Walk away from any high-volume commodity contract