Publisher Terry Tanker spent an afternoon with John Galyen, president of Danfoss, North America. Galyen discussed contractors, the wholesale market, commercial and industrial refrigeration, as well as the North American marketplace.
A 162-pound black marlin, in Cabo San Lucas
100,000 +
Microbiology. Later, I got a degree in business administration.
More than you might think ... my background in physics and chemistry really helped me in the early part of my career.
Veterinarian.
I am responsible for commercial refrigeration, industrial refrigeration, and our wholesale business. I also have operations, which includes application engineering, technical services, local logistics, customer service and marketing communications.
Keeping up with the demand.
We are benefiting from the fact that the economy is strong in the U.S. We are a relatively small market share holder and not so dependent on the absolute growth of mature markets here. We are distinguished from China, which is a rapidly expanding market where we have been for 10 years. Their growth is in the double digits and at least for the moment, we are growing faster.
We had built a relatively strong install base with our OEM customers, but we needed to have distribution to handle replacement products.
Organizational and employee development. We are a fairly young organization, but growing very rapidly. It's important that we retain the good, in-house talent that we have and establish clear career paths for our team.
Commercial refrigeration for Danfoss is broken into 34 different applications. Ice machines, restaurant equipment, walk-in boxes, compressed air dryers, and cold rooms are the bigger market segments for us.
We define it as ammonia-related warehouses, distribution centers, and processing plants.
It's our channel partners, wholesalers and distributors, who help us serve the contractors.
We built a team of direct factory salespeople who went around and worked inside the branches, taking care of warranties, updating catalogs, training counter people — they held hot dog days — and diligently worked the field. Basically, just lots of good hard work.
We have a team of nine today supporting the wholesalers. Johnstone Supply, United Refrigeration and Carrier Total Line are a few of the big ones.
Very well. Up until a few years ago, contractors didn't know the Danfoss name. Now, when they go into a wholesaler they will see our point-of-purchase displays, counter mats, banners, and special promotions for the contractors. Our sales team conducts counter days at the stores for training.
We gain deeper insights into the features and functions they value, which enables us to then incorporate them in the design.
Our new KPU pressure and temperature controls for the commercial market.
As an ARI member we actively support North American Technician Excellence (NATE). In order for contractors to invest in training and quality technicians, they need to be recognized for it. The homeowners need to know that they will have better value by using a NATE certified technician.
With regard to contractors, Danfoss is relatively new to the market and our products are not as well known. We have an obligation and requirement to train our people and to be ready to compete. We have an education and training component that trains both internally and externally. As a component provider our training is important to the contractor.
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