When North American consumers stand back and admire their newly-installed custom Hunter Douglas window coverings, few if any are likely to credit the manufacturer’s IT staff for getting it right. Yet the company’s success depends on the sophisticated configuration systems that IT operates to process myriad individual choices.
Rob Meilen, CIO of Hunter Douglas' North American operations since 2011, says those systems have to accommodate thousands of different attributes of potential window coverings as well as the business and production rules that govern which combinations can be manufactured and which can’t.
Partnering on product development
Those applications and product data reside in IT, rather than with product development or engineering groups as is more typical for manufacturers. “For historical reasons we’ve had it in IT and we’re looked at as very strong partners by people in product development and engineering because of our knowledge of products,” he says. A number of his staff, he adds, began at Hunter Douglas in operations roles and migrated to IT, bringing along great knowledge of the business.
North American operations, with about 7,000 employees, is part of a highly decentralized global group of 125 companies with 50 manufacturing and 75 assembly operations in more than 100 countries. The United States and Canada accounted for 43 percent of the $2.7 billion revenue reported for 2014 by Hunter Douglas N.V., which has its home offices in the Netherlands.
Putting on a better face
But about a year ago, the company, “at our CEO’s behest,” decided it needed to present a better, more unified technology front to its distribution channel. “For many years we had different pieces of technology that touched the dealers that sell our products,” Meilen explains. Although the company believed it offered some good tools for dealers, “We could make it even easier for them to do business with us,” he says.
With new customer experience groups established in the business and in IT, Meilen says, the company is focused on “simplifying some of the tools our business uses, developing new mobile apps for dealers — and eventually for homeowners, too — that can see our products, quote different possibilities and make a sale more easily than they could with our traditional tools. We think we’re at the start of a great journey.”
Focus on "Wow" products
The company relies exclusively on dealers for retail sales and has no plans to become a direct-to-consumer retailer, he says, adding, “We want to be the best innovator and manufacturer of window coverings and the easiest for dealers to do business with.”
One area for innovation is integrating its recently launched PowerView Motorization system with new home automation systems that have come on the market such as the Google Nest ecosystem or Apple Home Kit. Meilen’s team is currently applying its application and system integration skills to work “side-by-side” with electrical and mechanical engineers to interconnect the company’s new-generation motorized products, he says. “We in IT have been able to partner on true product development so that’s it’s a ‘Wow’ product for our dealers and homeowners.”
