Shortly after publication last week, BOSS managed to catch up with Atomic president Jack Baltz, who shed some light on his decision to launch a Small Business Unit covering the Mid-Atlantic and New York territories. Baltz said that the New York/New Jersey area has historically been the number one or number two market for most ski hard-goods manufacturers, “simply because of the sheer number of people in the area”. “Its not for Atomic, and it should be,” he said. “This is the most important market in the U.S., and this (SBU) should provide much faster reaction times and better service.”
Baltz also said that all of the field sales and service team were Atomic sales reps previously; he simply chose to bring them in-house. According to Baltz, this is “not necessarily” the first step in a move to bring all Atomic reps in-house. “This is the first step in a concept that might help us to better read whats going on,” he said. “Essentially they are running their own small business under our guidance.”
