Distribution Behind Current, powered by GE’s, Story

Current, powered by GE has been in the news lately as the company begins it’s next chapter of growth.

1. Officially called “Current, powered by GE”, Current is now owned by private equity firm American Industrial Partners, which closed on its deal the beginning of this month. While GE no longer has any ownership interest in the company the “powered by GE” is still part of its name and perhaps hoping to retain some branding / sales benefits.  For those unfamiliar with Current the company “spans LED and traditional lighting solutions, along with a wide variety of intelligent controls, sensors and software.”  They have a license to use the GE brand on its products and services (perhaps an incremental revenue stream for GE?)
2. Current also recently released a press release regarding its involvement in Macy’s launch of its “Story” concept, which is essentially a store within 36 Macy’s location.  According to a Macy’s press release, Story is a “narrative-driven retail concept shop. Opening with “Color” as its inaugural theme, STORY at Macy’s invites customers across the country to explore and experience color through a rainbow of curated, giftable products and through a range of more than 300 fun color-inspired events.”  Themes change every month in an effort to get consumers to revisit the story regularly.

According to Retail Dive, “ A key element of Stark’s work is “a giant interactive Lite-Brite experience produced by LiteZilla and an illuminated rainbow tunnel featuring colorful Tetra Contour technology from Current by GE, highlighting the number of “Instagram-able moments” within the concept.”

Large lighting companies have a tendency to issue press releases for marquee projects that frequently are sales that bypass distribution … both in the sales process and with the application as they want to show “what could be done” rather than “real opportunities” so, we reached out to Current to see if insights could be gathered. Surprisingly, Current’s PR agency put me in touch with Colleen Calhoun, Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer, which was much appreciated.

Some feedback:

• Tetra Contour is a NEON replacement system.  It combines a flexible LED light engine with a rigid, optically diffuse extruded-plastic light guide that can be heated and formed into different designs / shapes. So, if you call on retail, entertainment / event centers, restaurants or similar types of customers or have signage customers who are seeking to create an experience for their patrons, the product may have application.  They’ve also installed it at NRG Stadium.  Yes, Macy’s is a marquee application.
• In talking with Colleen, she shared the following:
  • The designer / developer of Story had known senior GE management a few years ago and a relationship was built.  So, it was a “top to top” relationship at the C-suite level. GE was seeking marquee initiatives to put its name on as part of its marketing / branding initiative.
  • However, Macy’s was also working with a lighting distributor on store retrofits as Macy’s is in the process of retrofitting 100 stores.
  • The Story business reportedly was placed through this distributor (sorry, can’t share the name.)
    • According to Current, when C-suite leads and relationships turn into business, the business is funneled through distribution (don’t know if this is written policy and/or communicated with distribution.)
  • Macy’s interest in the Tetra Contour technology was driven by the creative environment it could enable so, while it is LED and there are energy benefits, the key ROI criteria for Macy’s is qualitative as it relates to experience and quantitative as it integrates to the broader Story ROI criteria of return shoppers. The key here is that the definition of “ROI” does not have to tie to energy savings. ROI needs to be re-positioned based upon the customers benefit, which means salespeople need to inquire about business goals.
  • Coincidentally, my interview coincided with research I was doing for a presentation for NAILD titled “Capturing Share in the Renovation Space” (if you want, email me for a copy) and I inquired about Current’s distribution marketing tools as distributors should seek to leverage, or curate, manufacturer content to enhance their efforts rather than reinvent the wheel.  Current shared some information and commented that they:
    • Have content that can enable “each” distributors website to have pertinent content to that distributor.
    • Hold monthly marketing calls that are available to distributors.
    • Can provide content to be curated and shared some that related to IoT for workplaces as well as LEDs in Industrial IoT.

While lighting companies like marquee projects as they project well to shareholders, end-users and specifiers, from a channel viewpoint the first question should be “was the channel involved in the sale / the recipient of the sale?” and “how can my sales and marketing team benefit from the knowledge of this sale (sales process, customer buying criteria and product application)?” And a manufacturer’s sales agents, and management, should be able to answer these questions, otherwise the assumption is it was a direct sale and probably not repeatable.

The reality is that most of these opportunities could be reviewed as sales case studies, however, most companies don’t take the time to debrief, learn from and then share the experience to enable them to replicate the process, even if on a smaller scale.  Hopefully Current will share more with their agents and distributors to capitalize on the sales potential within “retail” environments with Tetra Contour.

With Current, powered by GE now an independent company, it will be interesting to see the changes the management team, with the support of AIP, seeks to change, and accelerate, the business. Being owned by private equity has different “pressures” than being part of a publicly held company as there is the expectation of faster growth and inevitably there is an endgame for the private equity firm … sell the business or take it public as the company needs to be monetized. This is good for distributors as it has the potential to energize the business. The questions then become

1. What does Current, powered by GE, need to do to grow the business?
2. Specifically, what does it need to do to better support its distributors?”