Six months into his role as Jeld-Wen Inc.'s president, Philip Orsino said today his company has changed its culture, reorganized many operations, and become "a sales-driven, cost-focused" window and door manufacturer.
"While our technology is incredibly important, the company will be sales-focused," Orsino told ProSales on the opening day of the International Builders' Show in Orlando, Fla. "...; We have reorganized our North American sales team. We have empowered our salespeople so they can make decisions now. We have flattened out the organization so decisions can be made on a timely basis. That's different from how the company operated previously."
As a result of these changes, Orsino said, while Jeld-Wen expects some improvement in the market for building products, "We will be successful even if there is no change." Roughly half the company's domestic sales volume is to new construction while the other half goes to remodelers, he estimated.
Orsino also said the company plans to stop distributing products itself and instead will rely on distributors to bring its goods to dealers. "We're establishing new relationships with large regional distributors," he said.
Orsino founded Century Door in 1983 and led the company through its 2001 acquisition of Masonite International. He served as president and CEO of Masonite International until 2005. In August, he was appointed president of Klamath Falls, Ore.-based Jeld-Wen a little over two weeks after Jeld-Wen announced that Onex Corp., a North American investment firm based in Toronto, would purchase a 58% stake in the company.
Jeld-Wen has been a troubled giant lately, with stories last year reporting the company was $1.2 billion in debt as a result of the housing market crash. The arrival of Onex as majority owners and Orsino as president ended more than 50 years of control by the Wendt family.
