Last year, Cascade Designs founder, John Burroughs, made the decision to consolidate all of Cascade Designs ownership into his own hands. This set off a chain of events that included Lee Fromson, the president of the company, deciding to leave his position, but remain as a board member. In July of 2006, the company promoted Joe Mc Swiney to serve as president. Mr. Mc Swiney was previously Vice President of European Operations for Cascade Designs Ltd., the European subsidiary of Cascade Designs Inc. located in Middleton, Ireland.
More recently, Mc Swiney sat down for a conversation with The B.O.S.S. Report to discuss his goals for the company. Cascade Designs is facing some challenges that several maturing companies in the outdoor industry are looking to address. Many of the classic outdoor brands were founded during the backpacking boom of the mid to late 1970s and today, are faced with sustaining the energy of the brand in the absence of the founders.
“It's my intention that the organization last a very long time, and I consider that to be one-hundred years plus,” said Mc Swiney. “So it is essential that we transition beyond the original founders. Organizations tend to get their core purpose from their founders, the reason for existence, and sometimes organizations take that for granted. So, it's important to manage that transition. This is not a today or tomorrow thing, John Burroughs is going to be around for quite a while, but its something to set up so the transition happens smoothly.”
Other companies have gone through similar transitions, but the shift away has usually been driven by a change in ownership either through a private equity or strategic acquisition. Some founders still sit on the board of their company, like Mr. Burroughs, others have disappeared from the industry, while still others have re-launched with new companies of their own. Mc Swiney and Burroughs are working together to make this transition as easy as possible for CDI. Mc Swiney was also quick to emphasize that Burroughs currently has no intention of selling the company.
The company is also re-thinking long term strategies. “With the departure of Lee Fromson and Jeff Bowman, some of the strategic intent departed. That, in a sense, has been a good thing for the organization, because it has allowed us to re-think our way forward,” Mc Swiney said.
Mc Swiney is working to build on the work of the last five years, when the organization upgraded and modernized its brand management. Now with much of this groundwork completed, he is looking to drive the company forward to the next level. “One of the things that has distinguished Cascade Designs from the beginning is that it has been particularly well-managed for a practitioner-founded organization,” Mc Swiney said. “In the early days it was more so in the areas of innovation and distribution, but recently I think that has extended into branding and marketing.”
Essentially, Mc Swiney has been working on clarifying Cascade Designs' strategic intent and creating a long term (five to 10 years) set of goals and targets that fit in with this strategic intent. “It's literally a work in progress,” he said. “It started shortly after I took this position, and should be complete sometime in the first half of next year. The timing is very good because I have inherited the results of a targeted effort to improve the marketing performance of the organization. I want to build on that and in order to do that I need to select our next set off major achievement over the next five to 10 years.”
One of the things Mc Swiney wants to build on and take advantage of is the fact that Cascade Designs is a multi-brand organization. “We can use our multiple brands to more precisely target the needs and culture and ideology of different market segments,” he said. “Cascade Designs is certainly unique in this respect in the outdoor business for our scale of company. It is something I think we are good at and we can build on.”
The company is building the multi-brand strategy in a very different pattern than many other companies in the industry. While the traditional thinking is to use three different brands, one each for specialty retailers, chains, and mass, Cascade is using their brands to target different consumers within the specialty channel. “The prevalent thinking in the industry is that if you are targeting one distribution channel, then you are better off using one brand.” Mc Swiney said. “However, if you are a small organization, like Cascade Designs and you try to play the same game as everyone else, then it's hard to differentiate yourself. So, we're playing it differently.”
This strategy also keeps the doors open for Cascade Designs to pursue further acquisitions, should the opportunity arise. While Mc Swiney said that there are currently no deals in the works, he maintains that there is always a possibility for Cascade to absorb a new brand. “The two things that Cascade brings to an acquisition are our distribution infrastructure and our engineering prowess,” he said. “We obviously won't add brands willy-nilly. That wouldn't make sense, because brands have a resource hurdle that they will consume in order to remain relevant and not just a product name. There is no aggressive schedule in terms of timing for an acquisition, right now.”
Cascades growth strategy is currently to maintain year-on-year internal sales increases through product innovation with additional growth “steps” added as the company makes acquisitions on a multi-year basis.
While Cascade is already relatively well-established internationally, with roughly one-third of the companys sales coming from international markets, Mc Swiney still sees some up-side in growing these markets. He said that, like any U.S. outdoor brand, their product penetration in global markets is smaller relative to the user-base, but overall he feels that the company has a solid distribution network and a good foundation for expansion. However, he also feels that in order to break the 30% barrier on international sales the company will need to further localize its products and marketing messages.
While the re-planning process for Cascade Designs is going to take time, the company has a solid base of distribution, engineering, marketing, and even healthy sales increases to build from. As the strategic vision takes shape, the company will likely become more active in acquisitions, but it will maintain its focus on premium products designed for specialty retailers.
