Making pools consumer friendly
Two industry leaders talk about what’s happening in the pool industry.
BY MICHAEL FICKES
THE PREDECESSORS of today’s Teledyne Laars/Jandy Products have a lot of firsts to their credit. In 1949, Avy Lewis Miller invented the first pool heater, which eventually came to market as the Laars Heater. In 1966, Teledyne acquired Laars Engineers and created Teledyne Laars.
In 1958, not long after the first pool heaters were installed, Andy Pansini stared at a garden hose that had fallen into his pool. As water pressure made the hose wriggle around the pool, Pansini envisioned the first automatic pool cleaner.
He designed it, built it and named it Jandy, combining his first name with his wife’s first name, Jane. Soon, Jandy Industries brought Rigid Arm Pool Cleaners to the market.
Innovations continued with the Jandy Valve, which gave pool plumbers a high-flow valve that accommodated several pipe diameters and featured a time-saving grease cap lube system.
During the ’90s, Jandy developed one of the first families of pool/spa electronic controls. In May 1996, Teledyne Laars acquired Jandy Products, creating Teledyne Laars/Jandy Products, a division of Fortune 500 giant Allegheny Teledyne Inc.
Teledyne Laars/Jandy Products operates three business units. The largest, Pool Systems, makes residential and commercial pool heaters, spa heaters, valves, pool cleaners, accessory maintenance devices, waterfalls and other pool features, and electronic pool and spa controls.
These products are shipped across the United States and around the world from manufacturing facilities in Novato, Calif.; Moorpark, Calif.; and Deerfield Beach, Fla.
Recently, SWIMMING POOL/SPA AGE talked with Robert Rasp, president of Teledyne Laars, and Vance Gillette, vice president and general manager of the Pool Systems business unit. Here’s what they had to say.
SP/SA: Mr. Rasp, you have been with the company for three years and president for one. Where do the opportunities lie for the Pool Systems Business Unit?
RASP: There are tremendous opportunities for us by expanding our product offerings. We want to focus on introducing new products that add value for pool owners and create additional revenue-generating opportunities for distributors and builders. Most importantly, we hope to differentiate our company by introducing products that enhance pool ownership, products that will make it more appealing to own a pool while reducing the drudgery and complexity associated with operating and maintaining one.
SP/SA: What kinds of products?
RASP: Electronic controls are a good example. Our line of controls add convenience and flexibility to a pool. We also want to develop new water features for our line of fountains, water falls and rock falls, products that enhance the aesthetics of a pool.
SP/SA: Overall the pool business has been growing sluggishly, if at all. Electronic controls and pool features are high-end products. How do you square your enthusiasm for these products with consumers who seem uninterested in pools?
RASP: Although there are no hard numbers to evaluate, industry estimates indicate that consumers buy 150,000 inground pools a year. Thirty percent are pool/spa combinations, a high-end purchase. Of the total pools installed yearly, about 10 percent (or 15,000) use electronic controls, another high-end item. A market penetration of 10 percent is probably triple the percentage of pools equipped with electronic controls five years ago. So, while the overall market may be sluggish, the high-end appears to be growing. A number of our products are positioned in the middle to high end.
GILLETTE: Let me add that industry research shows us that one of the main objections consumers have to purchasing a pool is the drudgery of operating and maintaining it. And it is drudgery.
If you have a pool/spa combination designed around one set of equipment, think of the work involved in using it. To use the spa, you must walk to the back of the yard to the equipment pad. You must turn a series of valves. You must make sure the automatic pool cleaner is turned off. You must turn on the heaters. Then you must wait until the spa heats up, checking it periodically until it’s right. Then you can get in.
A half-hour later, you may want to turn the temperature down. So you have to go back to the equipment housing. When you are finished, you must trudge back to the equipment housing and reverse the system.
Electronic controls eliminate this. Today, you can push a button at a console in the house or beside the spa, telling the system to rotate the valve, turn on the heater, and lock out the pool cleaner. You can even access the system over the telephone. For years, the experience of using a spa really wasn’t all that pleasant. Electronic controls are changing that.
SP/SA: Are you saying that introducing technology to a pool system can help move the market forward?
GILLETTE: It’s quite possible. The bad news is that research has shown that consumers don’t understand the extent of advanced technology products available. As consumers learn about these products, I think their attitudes will change.
Alternative sanitation systems also promise to make pool ownership easier and less costly. Take the new electrolytic chlorine generator. Instead of buying chlorine every month, you have a small manufacturing plant connected to your pool that makes chlorine daily. At the end of the month, the cost is about the same as what you would pay monthly if you bought chlorine and lugged it home. After three years, the equipment would pay for itself and your costs would go down.
SP/SA: You mentioned consumer attitudes. Along with the perception of drudgery connected to pool ownership, consumers also seem to believe that our industry is unprofessional, which is another reason for foregoing a pool purchase?
GILLETTE: I have a different view on this. Sure, there are unprofessional representatives in every industry, but as a consumer, if you do your homework, get several bids and study them, you’ll wind up with an excellent pool. I would say we’re building the best pools ever.
I think we’re suffering from an inferiority complex. We look down on ourselves. But look at the beautiful pools we’re building: infinity edge, negative edge, with fiber optic lighting, electronic controls and automatic cleaning systems. We couldn’t, or at least didn’t, build pools like this 10 years ago.
Yet we’re preoccupied by the professionalism issue. We are a professional industry. Before we can persuade the public to understand this, we must believe it ourselves.
RASP: I agree. Pool builders are growing more sophisticated every day. Twenty years ago, a pool was a rectangular hole in the ground. Today, pools are eloquent works of art. When the public begins to realize this, they will raise their expectations and create opportunities for all of us.
SP/SA: Let’s look ahead. How might current industry trends change the way the pool and spa industry does business?
RASP: I think that one of the most dynamic trends in our industry is the rapid consolidation of manufacturers, distributors and builders.
I don’t want to speak for distributors and builders, but from my point of view, consolidation among the industry’s manufacturing companies eventually will benefit all of us.
Consolidation produces bigger companies and offers economies of scale. You can cut the cost of repetitive tasks and shift money into research, product development, customer service and other “value-added” activities.
Instead of numerous companies selling one or two specialized products, a limited number of manufacturers will compete with complete product offerings. Instead of evaluating hundreds of competing products, sales reps and companies, distributors and builders will have fewer and better choices to make.
In summary, consolidation among manufacturers will increase competition, thereby requiring manufacturers to significantly improve their performance with respect to the cost and quality of the products they offer and the level of customer care and service they provide. As a result, the entire industry will benefit - from distributors to builders to dealers to consumers.