Publicity

New offices, rebranding initiative result of growth

Portland, Ore. -- Fueled by its steady growth over the past couple of years, The Carlson Group has undergone several changes recently.

Most notable is its new location in Lombard, Ill. While the company was founded in Portland and the headquarters offices remain the site of its operations and marketing departments, the Lombard office is now functioning as its central office, says Jon Nedland, business development director. "This is our 'flagship' office where we can bring clients, have client meetings and prototype reviews. We weren't able to do that in the past."

The 20,000-square-foot facility houses a sales area, display showroom, an expanded design department for design, engineering and estimating, production, a model shop, customer service with logistics fulfillment, conference rooms, a client green room (where customers can set up shop during their time there) and warehouse space.

"Lombard, in terms of core competency and expertise, is design and engineering, project management, account management and fulfillment, so the core of our business is here," explains Nedland.

The company simply outgrew its former locations in Oak Brook, Ill. "Our growth was a big reason for us needing to relocate into a larger facility," Nedland continues. "We moved into a facility that would accommodate not only our present head count but future head count over the next couple of years."

The move has also given the design department a boost. "We've definitely grown the design department and it's become more of a focus for us," says Thomas Chisari, design director. A new Mac workstation has increased the company's capabilities to do graphics in-house for clients, either for displays or graphics for print, he notes. "And we've also increased our head count in design, so we're ramping designers for in-house work." The design/engineering department now has seven employees.

A reference library is another important addition to the new facility, according to Chisari. Something "that was always thought about but never executed until now," he says the library is an organized area with bins of materials that have already been used, others that have been brought in as experiments or to have on file for the designers and engineers.

"If we do entertain clients in Chicago [Lombard] — and a lot of them are longstanding clients that we do a lot of development work with — we can have them come in and go through the library and we'll look at materials together," says Chisari. "It offers us the luxury to interact with them in the development process."

With all prototyping and production done by a network of suppliers, the new facility also allows the company to have all client meetings at this stage in-house as well. "When we're in the prototype review phase, we now have the ability to do those reviews here as opposed to at the supplier's," says Nedland.

The company has also continued to become more involved in shop-in-shop programs and custom store environments, along with creating semi-permanent and permanent P-O-P, fixtures, graphics and signage.

"The larger space for the shop-in-shops is crucial," adds Nedland. "We can have a defined brand environment shop-in-shop that can be upwards of 600 square feet. We also do complete retail stores for some of our clients. Doing those types of prototypes requires a much bigger space."

The company also recently opened a production office in Shanghai, China, in part because of clients' requirements to provide strategic sourcing options and expanded services, says Chisari.

"We're doing more and more production over there and we felt the need to have a presence in China," adds Greg Carlson, president of production, noting that the company has a staff of locals there working on its behalf.

A project from the Lombard office can be produced overseas or locally, Carlson says, and if done overseas, in most cases the projects then get shipped back to its fulfillment facility. "We do handle distribution from China to other countries," Carlson says "but the bulk of it comes back to Chicago for redistribution."

The language barrier has not been a problem thus far, says Carlson, especially since one of the engineers in the Lombard office is fluent in Chinese. "It's really getting an understanding of the vendor partners we use over there, their strengths and weaknesses, and then educating our clients on the lead time differences and some of the material and finishes differences from what they would expect in the U.S."

Finally, the company has a new look following a rebranding campaign. "We needed to evolve and become more current," says Chisari. A new identity, new literature and a new website all reflect the change.

"It was time," agrees Nedland. "The market has changed quite a bit over the last few years and we have, too. The new Lombard office, the opening of the Shanghai office and the rebranding are a direct result of that growth. TCG is now evolving into its next several years of where it wants to be as a company in this marketplace."

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