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Global Impact
A successful merger yields significant results an interview with Derick Marsh and Adam Licciardi
In December 2014, U.S.-based Rollease and the Australian company Acmeda finalized a merger that has resulted in an amazing expansion of new product offerings and services. CEO Derick Marsh, along with Adam Licciardi, the company’s chief marketing officer, discussed what Rollease Acmeda brings to the window for its clients. What was the impetus for the merger? Derick Marsh: To combine the global geographical footprint and second-to-none customer base with one of the largest engineering and design teams in the industry. This allows us to offer a breadth of high quality products and services unavailable from any other single supplier. Over the past two years we have worked to maximize the benefits of having operations in three continents and an extremely talented pool of employees and managers, so while formal headquarters for the group remain in Stamford, CT, some of the most important managers and functions are outside of the U.S. For example, earlier this year we consolidated our U.S.-based research and development operations into a state-of-the-art innovation and design center in Melbourne, Australia, which is staffed by more than 20 employees who support U.S. operations, along with those in Australia and Italy. Adam manages sales and marketing from Melbourne but obviously has to be a global citizen to handle that job properly.
What does the merger offer for Rollease Acmeda customers? DM: Our existing SKU count nearly doubled, and we now have almost 10,000 products to offer our customers worldwide in every product category of window covering, inside and outside the home. We have easily the widest range of hardware solutions and one of the largest ranges of fabric and automation solutions. Adam Licciardi: For the former Rollease customers, the most visible changes are a best-in-class motor and automation range called Automate, a full collection of awnings and external shading products such as Zipscreen and wire-guided shades, a new Extreme range for internal and external roller shades up to 24 feet wide, a wide collection of commercial-oriented products from new and versatile cassettes to heavy duty link and bracketing systems, and advanced child safe products such as our Aero chain free double shade system and retractable wand system and the new Fashion Wand program that makes chain loops inaccessible. We realize we’ve introduced a tremendous amount of new products and recognize that some our customers were struggling to digest all these new offerings. One of the biggest differences has been that the Australian operations have a history of focusing on spring-assisted, light-to-the-touch, visually appealing systems. These products are making their way into the U.S. in as integrated a manner as possible, since our customers and installers are accustomed to the existing U.S. product offerings and do not want to learn an entirely new system. This coming year will see the emergence of a more systems-oriented approach to our U.S. program versus what was historically a more component-oriented approach. What does that mean for “component” customers? DM: Our core immediate customer remains the fabricator of finished shades and we now offer that fabricator even more options to differentiate itself from the competition. We have invested millions in expanding our distribution center near Charlotte, NC, upgrading our IT infrastructure to handle the demands of our new offerings, and increasing the size and capabilities of our Innovation and Design Center.
Research operations for the global company, including design and product development, are based in Melbourne, Australia.
24 | wf-vision.com | Jan + Feb 2017