Case Study: Kitchen, Bath And Beyond
"This is where we'll drive growth," says Erik Chesla, managing partner of digital integrator FutureTech, as he stands amid Italian cabinetry, granite countertops and high-end bathrooms at New York Kitchen and Bath's (NYKB) new showroom on Manhattan's Upper East Side. "Instead of focusing on a single market, we'll grow by offering our existing customers new solutions and by partnering with market leaders."
Its new partnership with NYKB is just the latest step in the company's transformation from its roots as Evok Solutions, a commercial IT solution provider, also based in New York, into a home integrator that uses a wide range of scalable solutions to reach a variety of customers. "As IT integrators, we have a unique advantage when it comes to installing and integrating home systems," Chesla says. "We were involved in lots of projects where many different products had to talk to each other. We can take various interfaces and make them communicate with one another."
FutureTech's ability to integrate products that work well together and its willingness to explore new technologies led to the relationship with NYKB, where the integrator recently installed a full Control4 lighting, security, A/V and climate control solution. Now, NYKB will market the system to clients who are remodeling their apartments, while FutureTech will handle the installs.
Chesla and Maurice Platier, FutureTech's futurist, consider themselves lucky--they've found a perfect catalyst in Karalesa Greer, NYKB's enthusiastic director of marketing. Most people working within the home building and design trades talk about new home technologies without having a clue about the sales and integration process. But Greer gets it. "It's important to highlight future technologies as a way to offer what people are talking about now," she says. "This is so new. People are talking about it, but they don't know where to find the right solution for their needs and how to install it. FutureTech does a great job of explaining the technologies to us so we can explain it to our clients."
Greer is executing several marketing strategies to tout the Control4 solution. First off, NYKB sales staff explains the concept to each prospect and provides a hands-on demonstration. If clients want more information, the salesperson has them view a DVD on Control4's capabilities. Greer also plans to hold a series of open houses at the showroom for specific customer sets, including architects and interior designers.
"It's so much easier to sell something when people can actually see and feel it," she says, adding that her target audience, which usually spends between $50,000 to $100,000 with NYKB, ranges from 25-year-olds buying their first apartments to an older set that wants the convenience of home automation in an existing home or the ability to control a second home. "Architects and interior designers are also important to us because they are working with high-end customers that want the latest and greatest. They're also repeat customers," Greer says. "If you hook one architect or designer, you'll get multiple jobs from them."
There's another important customer set NYKB reaches: women. While men traditionally have controlled technology purchases in the home, women are taking a more central role as those products encroach on a home's interior design. "Women are traditionally in charge of aesthetic decisions. Now they can be more involved," Chesla says. "They will feel more comfortable with technology because it's being showcased in their environment. It will open up a whole new market for us."
NYKB and FutureTech decided to lead with Control4 because the products offer scalable solutions that can start as low as $600. The new wireless products also limit the need to tear apart walls. Working with the products during Control4's first year "was not for the meek," Chesla says, referring to product delays and incompatible drivers. But he says Control4, Salt Lake City, did everything it could to help rectify the problems. Control4 dealers, Chesla says, also have established a strong network through which they share information about new drivers and other programming issues.
Control4's mantra of providing cost-effective control and automation solutions to the mass market resonates with FutureTech. "The nice thing about Control4 is that it's a modular system, so you can build on it," Chesla says. "They also focus on the whole network and provide over 100 SKUs, which allows us to control most everything in the house."
About four years ago, Chesla and Platier realized that type of market opportunity would soon be available. Back then, they were running Evok Solutions, which focused on voice recognition and document solutions for small medical offices. One day a customer called after he had spent $250,000 for a Crestron-based home control system but couldn't get it to work the way he wanted. The integrator that installed the system refused to return the doctor's calls, Chesla says. Frustrated, the doctor asked his commercial IT solution provider to help. Evok rose to the challenge and adjusted the system to the doctor's liking.
"That caused us to look more closely at our customers who had home automation systems," Chesla says.
Evok Solutions' clients continued asking for home solutions, which has led to steady work with builders, retrofitting retirement homes in New Jersey and outfitting a handful of Re/Max realtors in Pennsylvania with conference rooms based on a Microsoft Media Center solution. Evok Solutions still works in the commercial world but the team is focusing more of its time on growing FutureTech. "I have to admit, working in people's homes is a lot more fun than working in a doctor's office," Chesla says.
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