Q&A with Tom Reed, CEO, Scanstrut
Outdoor technology manufacturer Scanstrut scooped an impressive treble late last year with an IBEX Innovation Award and METSTRADE DAME Awards Category win for its new ATMOS integrated air station, before topping the product collaboration charts in the IBI METSTRADE Boat Builder Awards. We ask what happens behind the scenes to generate this kind of success.
Q - Scanstrut has evolved significantly since we interviewed you a decade ago – how would you describe the business today?
Answer - The business has grown significantly. We’ve introduced three product categories and several new SKUs since British Marine visited in 2013 and we started a US company that added an important additional sales and logistics arm.
When you look at Scanstrut’s diverse ranges individually you can see a common connection if grouping them under our ‘outdoor technologies’ banner. Our design drive is to create products that generate better boating experiences by making electronics easier, simpler and more comfortable to use on board.
Our product ethos is also common across everything we bring to market – if you compare one of our cable seals against our ATMOS air pump you can see the link in the design language and the level of development that we put each product through in terms of testing, materials proving, intuitive use, straightforward instruction and so on.
Q - How large is the Scanstrut design team today?
Answer - Larger than when you last visited! We have a product design team of nine now – they are our engine room, and we are always on the lookout for good people. We balance design investment between meeting the demands of the ranges that we currently have where new items might be needed to meet market demand versus investing in ground-breaking products that won’t see the light of day for two or three years.
Q - What alerts you to a niche in the market that you can exploit?
Answer - Ideas come from many different directions. A lot of people in the company are boaters themselves so they’ll be experiencing needs that are not being satisfied or addressed well. We get feedback from our sales teams, reps and original equipment manufacturers.
We say no to a lot of ideas if they are not right for our brand. The initial tests that an idea needs to pass to be considered for further development are: can it bring value? Would our product design principles work? Is the end user going to be delighted with it?
Q - What is a typical gestation period from idea to finished product?
Answer - It depends how familiar we are with the technology that’s required to make a new product work. Our ATMOS integrated air station took two years, which is normal for a platform launch like that. Others are faster but whatever the product, we only launch when we are certain that it’s ready.
We will look in detail at the application of technology and to ensure what exists now can be applied to the marine environment. If not, we ask what changes do we need to make to it? Do we need to go and find a different way of getting the right result?
It’s like an iceberg. You see the product on an exhibition stand looking fantastic and working brilliantly. Beneath that are hours and hours of research, prototyping and testing. I have no idea how many paddleboards and towables were inflated and deflated in our workshops over the last 18 months while developing ATMOS!
Q - What are the final tests to decide whether you release a product?
Answer - People trust our brand. When we bring a product to market, they know it’s going to work, have long life and be easy to use. Any new product must measure up to those expectations.
There are several projects that we started developing which we stopped because we were either not comfortable with being able to make it suitable for our customers or because of limitations on the technology and materials for the outdoor environment.
Q - What do you see as the benefits of entering competitions?
Answer - One of the most important things is you get an external assessment of what you’re doing. We believe in our product; we know how much work has gone into developing it and getting it ready for the market. But having an independent group of experts look at the product and acknowledge its design attributes and usefulness to end users is a highly effective endorsement.
Any final product is the culmination of a huge number of decisions. Each of those is carefully reviewed and discussed. Nevertheless, innovation is unpredictable and your track to the final product is never linear. These sorts of endorsements confirm that you have made the right decisions along the way.
Winning also raises the profile of the product in the eyes of our customers and wider market. It makes it worthy of them spending time to find out more at shows and online. We see that through increased inbound enquiries.
It’s an accolade and a boost for everyone at Scanstrut – not just our design team but also the wider sales and marketing team as recognition of their brilliant input on the direction our products need to take.
Q - You won an IBI METSTRADE Boat Builder Award for collaboration with the Nautique Boat Company in the US – why did that exercise work so well?
Answer - The magnetic phone charger for their 2024 model year ski boats was a good project – we’re working on some additional new technology projects with them right now. Their needs were very specific – they knew the problems they wanted us to solve, how the solution should look to blend with their design and what they would do to test it. It wasn’t an overnight exercise.
It helped that we have a US office and a fantastic network of reps who enjoy strong relationships with the builders in that country. We have several live projects in the States and in-person support there has been vital for these opportunities to run efficiently.
Q - Is there anything about the way you enter competitions that you think helps your success with them?
Answer - We are very cognisant of how little time the judging panel is given to really understand your entry. The wording of the application, the clarity of how you present the idea and the way the product itself arrives for the jury to look at – all those things must be based upon the fact that you might not get very long to capture their imagination. We try to make it as easy as possible to quickly appreciate the important features of the product.
Further information
www.scanstrut.com | www.damedesignawards.com | www.ibexshow.com/innovation-awards | www.boatbuilderawards.com