Jul 27 2007
In 2006, Rosti Searcy lost its major customer, Maytag, following Whirlpool’s acquisition of Maytag and the subsequent closure of Maytag’s plant in Searcy.
90 % of Rosti Searcy’s total sales in 2006 was suddenly lost. The prospect of sales for 2007 was reduced to 10 % and Searcy was facing a latent risk of closure. A task force at the Searcy plant, headed by MD Rick Tharp, managed to get support from the other US sites as well as global Rosti subsidiaries in Europe and China. While manning was kept high to ensure full support to Maytag’s phase out plan, US based international customers were targeted for production within the US. Many sales leads were opened via existing customer relations, for example through Rosti Larkhall (Scotland) and Rosti Suzhou (China).
Successful Efforts
The efforts proved to be successful. New business of annualized 100 % of the original sales has been awarded from a wide group of large US customers. This “rescue Searcy” case is a strong confirmation of Rosti’s ability to manage risks working together across the Rosti sites globally.
Rick Tharp said: “I had all the confidence in the world that Rosti A/S would pull together a team that would make Searcy a viable entity again. I am very satisfied with the timely progress of the recovery. Going forward, we must apply the lessons learned from the Maytag loss. We must have multiple strong customers, not rely on just one customer. This focuses our attention on the importance of maintaining and sustaining an RFQ [Request for Quote] base in our pipeline for the future.”