Q&A: Charlie Porritt, Russound

Unlike recent years, which were rather prosperous for custom electronics manufacturers, 2008 will likely go down as a transitional year for Newmarket, N.H.-based Russound.

Reacting to the downturn in consumer spending, the New England company refocused its product development efforts to better reflect consumer trends.

The first step in the company's commitment to meet current demands was the promotion of Charlie Porritt as its new CEO.

Porritt took some time to talk with CE Pro about the company's latest products, dealer initiatives as well as its increased focus on the retrofit home market.

How has the economy affected Russound's business over the past year?

I think like everyone else, the economic situation has impacted Russound. The crunch has brought consumer spending down.

However, our new construction business is primarily custom and semi-custom, and the building impact on Russound has been less than those in the production area.

Our goal is about bringing new products to the marketplace, and we will focus on the segments of the market that we think can make the Russound customer some money.

Russound is offering several new products targeting the retrofit installation market. How will these products help dealers?

One of the things we've been doing a better job of at Russound in 2008 is listening to the customer as to what feature sets they want.

We did a significant market research study with EH Publishing and [EH director of research] Daryl Delano. We really drilled down into the market and asked where their revenues come from.

The respondents said 45 percent of their revenues were derived from the retrofit or renovation market as opposed to new construction and commercial.

The retrofit market has some real legs to it and our Avenue product is a bridge product, where there's an opportunity to add more zones to an existing system.

The iBridge product can be used with both the Avenue and Collage, and it has a single wire to connect.

Our speaker line allows our customers to install many speakers in the home after the walls are up.

Our media center product is another of those product families we offer that is applicable to the retrofit and new construction markets. Our customers are just as likely to install these products into an existing home as a new home.

Russound debuted many new products at CEDIA Expo. When can dealers expect to see these products?

One clear message in our booth at the Expo was that every product in our booth would ship within 90 days [of the event].

One product that's already shipping is the A-BUS [amplified keypad system]. The CA4 [multiroom controller] is another great example of a system that just started shipping, and [as of press time] we've already sold out of them.

The next products, the Acclaim 5 and 7 series of speakers started shipping in October. The Sphere products, which included introduction of the ZXP-E5 Zone Expander, TSV-E5 touchscreen and the RFR-E5 RF remote, will ship in November.

The Collage will ship in Q2 2009, the Avenue in November and the iBridge [has] started to ship.

The key message we think is important is that everything CEDIA attendees saw in the booth in action will ship within 90 days. The only product that won't, which we demonstrated offsite as a technology demonstration, is the Collage.

At Russound, we've made a strategic decision to ship products within 90 days of showing it at a trade event. If we can't do it we won't show it.

The Avenue and Collage systems use the HomePlug spec as a means of connectivity. Will Russound be offing training about this genre of powerline-based technologies?

Absolutely. Whenever we introduce a new line of products, we are focused on providing tools, documentation and training to support that product.

When you look at our Russound TEC [Training, Education and Certification] group, it is made up of five full-time members, and we offer a variety of training and education options that range from 24/7 online training, Russound Webinars and our All Wired Up University (which is a traveling road show throughout the U.S. and Canada).