Dalton, GA, Dec. 9--Tandus Group has made fundamental changes to its strategy for bringing to market its specialized floorcovering brands--C&A Floorcoverings (C&A), Crossley Carpet Mills and Monterey Carpets.
With the start of the company's 2003 fiscal year on January 26, the three brands' sales teams will combine products and services to create a single point of contact for customers.
As customers seek single source solutions from vendors, the company has designed a delivery system that responds to customer needs and shifting market demands. Currently, each of the three brands has its own sales force, many of whom call on the same customers. The new strategy calls for further refinement of market segmentation pioneered by C&A since 1994. The new strategy creates three separate sales organizations going to market representing all products and brands in the U.S. In Canada, the Crossley organization has been very effective at selling all three brands for several years.
"With three highly focused, well trained sales organizations representing all product brands, our customers will benefit by having one account executive with more products and services in his or her bag," said Mac Bridger, CEO of Tandus. "As a result, Tandus will be a more efficient organization for our customers."
"Successful businesses continually modify how they go to market in order to stay current with market conditions and trends. Those that don't typically languish and lose share to more progressive, nimble companies," said Lee Schilling, senior vice president of Tandus. "In the last two years, we've seen more change in the marketplace than in the last decade. This new and unique business model reflects what we believe is the right structure to best serve our customers.
"It is essential that our customers understand that the C&A, Monterey and Crossley brands are not going away. This new selling structure depends on the continued strength of the individual brands. We want to build equity in our product brands, not diminish it. As a result, each brand will maintain with its own communications program and product development teams."
Tandus will operate as an umbrella organization to support the product brands. The marketing organization previously dedicated to C&A will now focus on all brands going forward. In 1999, the company built a unique business model during the merger with Monterey and Crossley by allowing each brand to maintain its individual strengths and personality while harnessing their collective capabilities in the marketplace for the customer.
Under the new strategy, account executives will work in one of four company groups:
Tandus specialized markets focuses on education, healthcare and government accounts; Tandus design focuses on professional designers and architects across all end markets; Tandus corporate focuses on corporate and retail accounts; Tandus Canada focuses on professional designers and architects across all end markets as well as corporate, retail education, healthcare and government end users. Each group will represent all brands.
"It's critical that companies constantly look for a better way to serve the customer. In my view, the best time to do this is during difficult economic environments such as we face today. This new strategy is about getting better for our customer, not about cutting resources," said Bridger. "In fact, as we build out the new structure, I would expect to substantially increase the presence of each brand in the market. We have enormous capabilities at Tandus and our opportunity for market share growth is to tell this great story to more customers."
