Colwell Industries

Source: Manufacturing Digital

Date :29/06/2007 16:08:57

Colwell Industries Inc. continues to find creative and innovative ways to market color.

Written and produced by James Buchanan & Patrick Harlow

Color is the language of art and design, and as such, its scope and breadth is nearly limitless.

However, though it may be a language unto itself, tints and hues are very difficult to accurately describe in a meaningful way without actually seeing the particular color. For example, you might want to paint a room red, but there are hundreds if not thousands of shades and styles of that color. Finding just the right one takes more than flowing verbiage to communicate its attributes.

You have to see it.

This is why paint companies for years have been more than willing to provide customers with numerous paint swatches (samples) as the best means to communicate the subtle differences between peach and mango or island sand and beachside raffia.

“We specialize in the design, manufacture and distribution of color merchandising tools, primarily for decorative product industries,” says Donovan Freeland, president of Indiana operations for Colwell Industries Inc. “The largest segment of our business is in providing the collateral materials for the selling of paint.

“We produce the color swatches that you’ll find in nearly every kind of store that sells paint, from the corner hardware store to big box retailers. And since latex paint may fade or be altered over time, we accurately recreate that color in a more stable coating that is better suited for the retail environment.”

Colwell was founded as a printing company in 1893 in Minneapolis, Minn., where it is still headquartered, and by the 1930s had grown to become a major U.S. printer. In the early 1950s, the company started printing color cards for the paint industry.

As the market grew, Colwell made the decision to leave the printing business to focus on color merchandising for a variety of industries such as cosmetics, automotive, window fashions, paint, paper and more. Today, the company has grown to an international scale, but is still a family held business.

“Primarily we work for manufacturers such as Valspar, Benjamin Moore, Sherwin Williams, Behr, Springs, Hunter Douglas and Levolor,” Freeland says. “We help design their collateral materials, and then produce them. Our fulfillment center can distribute the finished materials direct-to-store, direct-to-distribution center, and in some cases direct-to-customer.”

Regarding the direct-to-customer sales, Freeland says this is primarily a web-based function. For example, a customer may go to a paint manufacturer’s website and order sample test pots on-line. That order is then automatically directed to Colwell, which fills the order.

The company also provides a number of services and resources designed to support its customers and the market. These include a color studio that specializes in the design and research of color trends and palette designs; creative design services for graphics and innovative merchandising products; market research to understand consumer attitudes and behaviors; color reproduction; project management; managed inventory; and customer fulfillment, to name a few.

“This is a very niche business,” says Freeland. “Compared to our competitors we are simply the most diverse. We have competitors within each of the categories we work in, but there isn’t a company that we compete with that covers all of the categories we do.”

Freeland also says that Colwell has a unique approach to how it serves its markets.

“Some of our competitors only see their role as just supplying what the manufacturer orders,” he says. “Our approach is to do formal and informal research in the markets we serve and be proactively innovative. We try to understand branding and market segmentation so the next tool we manufacture is better and more effective than what came before it.

“We see this role as being a leading force in the industry, rather than just filling orders as they come in from manufacturers. We want to develop good ideas and bring those ideas to our customers.”

Freeland says this more expansive definition of customer service also relies upon collaborative efforts with customers where initiatives are examined and new ideas and methods are developed.

“Our global footprint enables us to be closer to where our customer and their customers are located,” says Freeland, “which means we can better understand our customers and their market, which results in better products and services, and greater customer satisfaction.”

The company’s success can also be attributed to the niche it fills.

“When times are good people go shopping and need color samples to help them select and coordinate,” says Freeland. “When times are tough, people tend to stay home more and make simple changes to their ‘nest’ — like putting on a fresh coat of paint — so there is still a place for our products.”

The company is also willing to take a few risks in order to keep its products on the cutting edge.

“We are very entrepreneurial and willing to take some risks in that regard,” says Freeland. “We won’t bet the farm, but we try to be innovative, even when we can’t be sure it will succeed. We’ve got to this point because we’ve learned from our successes as well as our failures.”

Part of what guides the company’s innovative nature, he adds, is its adherence to good planning.

“We are still a relatively small business in that we are not a Fortune 500 company, but we do take the time to plan and set goals in a way that everybody in the organization understands our collective vision,” says Freeland.

On the technology side the company also works to stay a step ahead.

“I think we are the most advanced among our industry,” says Freeland. “We have a million dollar computer-assisted color dispensing system in our plant that is the most advanced in our industry. While incredibly accurate, it still requires something of an artistic eye because we have to consider the conditions — such as the lighting source —under which a consumer would view them. So it is something of a subjective thing, which requires some tweaking here and there and a few adjustments to meet what the customer is looking for.”

The company also led in developing the fairly ubiquitous stripe sample cards seen in paint stores, he adds.

“It used to be that the paint came premixed in cans and that’s how you bought it. The selection was very limited,” says Freeland. “Now paint colors can be blended in the store so people select colors from hundreds, even thousands of swatches, and their paint is tinted while they wait.”

Looking forward, Freeland sees his company growing through a couple of means.

“We have grown organically, but through the years we have also grown through strategic acquisitions and are continuing to look at additional territories such as Asia,” he says. “There is nothing that I can discuss right now, but we are actively seeking to expand geographically through acquisition.

“We also want to use acquisitions as a means to expand the company’s products and services. An example of this would be our expansion to include products for the cosmetics industry,” Freeland says.

Innovation and product development are also key aspects of the company’s growth strategy, he adds.

“We led the North American market with the introduction of test pots of paint sold at the point-of-purchase to customers,” says Freeland. “That allows the consumer to select color from a small sampling of actual product applied to the wall, rather than from a swatch of color on paper.”

In the end though, it’s all about one thing.

“Looking forward we will continue to focus on color,” says Freeland. “What we sell is color, it is all about color and helping people select and use color.”