Not all acquisitions are integrated smoothly. The Belden Inc. acquisition of GarrettCom is 90 days old, so Automation World talked to Belden Vice President of Marketing Mike Miclot, and GarrettCom’s president, Frank Madren to find out how this acquisition is playing out.
St. Louis-based Belden (www.belden.com) is perhaps best known as a manufacturer of a wide variety of cables, but it has recently jumped into new market segments with the acquisition of Hirschmann, a manufacturer of industrial-grade Ethernet switches, and GarrettCom. While GarrettCom also manufactures Ethernet switches, it also has a line of routers and security devices, finding its principal market in the power utilities area.
Miclot explained that Belden was searching for premium products to penetrate into the power utilities market to expand its current strength in industrial. Madren maintains that the GarrettCom/Hirschmann combination is the market leader in revenues. Since Hirschmann and GarrettCom have different, albeit complementary, strengths, they have fit well together. GarrettCom’s typical sale involves mastering complexity, while Hirschmann goes to market through Belden’s existing distributor channel.
Belden has long employed Lean Manufacturing principles and has been transferring that knowledge to GarrettCom, which builds products to order and stands to benefit from improved product flow through its factories.
The two Belden companies have found synergies by sharing technologies. GarrettCom is accessing Hirschmann’s layer-three switch expertise, while Hirschmann benefits from GarrettCom’s routing expertise.
Belden Inc. www.belden.comGarrettCom www.garrettcom.comHirschmann www.hirschmann.com
