ViewSonic Restructures For a Better Tomorrow

Last week, one of the sector's most storied smaller players is making changes in an attempt to better align itself with internal financial goals and external business commitments to companies like yours. To wit, ViewSonic has promoted Christopher Franey, currently on assignment serving as president of ViewSonic Europe, to become the company's president of its Americas business operations. The move frees James Chu to serve as a true, global CEO full time.

As part of the changes at ViewSonic, longtime company channel advocate Jeff Volpe, ViewSonic's current vice president of Americas sales, will become vice president of marketing for the Americas business unit. He'll simultaneously run sales and marketing until a new U.S. sales boss is named. The move, Volpe tells VARBusiness, "paves the way for ViewSonic to have a louder voice in the channel."

"I'm looking forward to getting my marketing cap on full time and to take us to the next level," he adds.

The move comes at a critical time for ViewSonic, which, though a leader in the U.S. market, has been under siege from very large players trying to knock it out of the top rank of display suppliers in the United States. That includes the likes of Sony, Samsung and, most recently, LG Electronics, whose senior vice president, Morris Lee, told this editor on Tuesday that he fully expects the investments his company is making to help propel LG to the top spot in displays in the U.S. market. What's interesting is LG, one of the world's largest display makers, is not even one of the top 10 U.S. players today.

ViewSonic, however, is. According to iSupply/Stanford Resources, ViewSonic finished 2003 as the No.1 company (measured by units) in the 17-inch CRT and 15-inch LCD category with a 13.6 percent market share. It was followed by NEC-Mitsubishi (12.4 percent) and Samsung (9.5 percent). LG's Lee believes the big four in the business are ViewSonic, NEC-Mitsubishi, Samsung and Sony; market-share numbers, measured by revenue, anyway, bears that out.

Interestingly, all four rely heavily on the channel. And all four are recruiting partners daily. Volpe himself says ViewSonic, the smallest of the companies trying to dominate in displays, has to win its stripes every day with the channel. For a while, it certainly was. For five years running, ViewSonic topped the display category in our Annual Report Card (ARC) study that measured partner satisfaction. But in 2002, NEC-Mitsubishi edged it out for the top spot. The following year, 2003, Samsung did. Volpe hopes to regain the title this year when we release our ARC scores in the fall.

Volpe thinks the time is right for ViewSonic to re-establish itself as the channel's undisputed advocate and ally. The company, after all, has a raft of new products that span everything from home-theater solutions to public displays to day in/day out office workhorses. And it has a dedicated and focused channel team dedicated to helping VARs maximize their opportunities no matter their interest, whether they are digital convergence, office productivity or simple hardware reselling.

In the coming months, the company plans to formally discuss plans to recruit new partners to take it where it hasn't been strong before. Think consumer, home and traditional audio-visual channels.

At the end of the day, however, Volpe says his future is tied to many of the same partners that helped propel ViewSonic to where it is today. And he vows that whatever plans the company hatches, these partners will not be overlooked.

We'll keep you posted on the company's changes.