DDi - November/December 2013 - (Page 48)

A d v e r t o r i A l Q&A with Ken Stolls, President, Global Visual Group Q A Q A Q A How would you describe your business in one sentence? Global Visual Group is the world's only true turnkey visual manufacturer and supplier. How different does your company look today from five years ago? In August 2009, Lifestyle and Trimco merged, and that was the first time a single company offered both mannequins and decoratives. It was tremendously successful, and we continued to share this success with our partners. We continued our expansion by bringing Viaggio into the family, and it has been absolutely seamless. Now, with the addition of Almax, we are an even greater global powerhouse than ever before. What differentiates your company from competitors in the marketplace? We are offering such a diverse group of visual product, the likes that no one else has to offer directly. Can someone go to a typical mannequin house and ask for decoratives or fabric applications? I'm sure that they'll be glad to try and accommodate, but they're not a direct manufacturer or a direct resource-we are. There are a handful of our customer-partners who take advantage of each and every one of our offerings-mannequins, forms, holiday/ seasonal décor and fabric applications-because it allows us to help leverage their spend dollars more efficiently. In addition, instead of having five different conversations with five different companies, they are now just having one. Q A What is your company's philosophy toward customization? In our industry, a retailer should have its own thumbprint on what they're communicating visually to the market. Otherwise, you have a bunch of empty boxes that all look alike, and the only thing that's distinguishing them, then, is their product alone. There has to be more than that. Customization is everything. It is a differentiating point that if done effectively, will result in greater sales, brand loyalty and ultimately greatest ROI. Q A Are you seeing more or less collaboration in the industry? If you talk about collaboration within the industry, as far as suppliers go, we have relationships in other sectors of the industry that may not commonly be in our wheelhouse for the moment. In most cases, we simply put good people with good people. If it's not something that is my core competency, I'm not going to "yes" someone to death. In day-to-day business, we collaborate regularly with retailers and designers. We have to understand what their vision is and be able to execute within their timeframe and budget. Many times, their vision is not clearly defined, and we are relied on to help see it through. It is just one of the many aspects of being a real partner. Q What else should we know about your company? A We will be showcasing at EuroShop this upcoming February; followed by GlobalShop in March. Before both of these wonderful venues, we will be hosting another high-profile February Fashion Week event at our NYC showroom. We support the fashion industry as much as we can in many different ways. Additionally, we continue to be very involved in PAVE. My father, Richard Stolls, was a founder, so it's in my DNA. How it has grown over the years is simply amazing. lfs-trimco.com Number 23 at www.ddionline.com/readerservice http://www.lfs-trimco.com http://www.lfs-trimco.com http://www.ddionline.com/readerservice

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of DDi - November/December 2013

DDi - November/December 2013
Contents
From the Editor
From the Show Director
Retail Design Collective
RDC Showroom Map
RDC Products
New York Retail
Company Listing
Product Category Index
Product Category Listing
Classifieds
Calendar
Advertisers

DDi - November/December 2013