Kyle Uebelhor: I’m glad to be here today with Andy Baker from Copeland. I’m Kyle Uebelhor, a partner with the Alexander Group, and I run our manufacturing and distribution practice. And Andy is with us today to talk a little bit about what it’s like to be a part of an early-stage transformation. What’s it like to be a part of a customer-centric organization, as you’re looking at the new world and more importantly, how you go through these stages together. So, Andy, I guess let’s start off by telling us a little bit more about Copeland and what’s going on.
Andy Baker: Yeah. So Copeland, we’re in an interesting part of our journey right now. 100-year-old startup just past our 100th anniversary. But we’re a startup. We recently became private, went out with Blackstone as our primary investor, and we are now a separate company operating with a renewed vision and vigor about what it is that we do. And what we do, it’s really about sustainability. It’s really about the approach we’re taking, the markets we serve in HVACR, and about not only the hardware, but the software and the value that we create. So we’re in a great position, lots of transformation. I really feel like we’re on the cusp of a lot of innovation, and the transformation journey is just beginning for us when we start talking about commercial excellence.
Kyle Uebelhor: Yeah. It’s interesting. And I think, you know, for context, your industry is under a tremendous amount of change right now. And Copeland, as you said, almost over a century old as a legacy from the Emerson and a lot of different acquisitions, but those changes are real. Why don’t you talk a little bit more about what’s actually happening in the industry?
Andy Baker: Yeah. So it’s really, you know, coming into this industry, I came in and I run our cold chain commercial practice. So I’m working with our customers that are really in refrigeration systems and building up solutions that really keep food and pharmaceutical products safe. That’s the part that I play and the, the tailwinds that we’re facing right now, a little bit of headwinds too. It’s about really this embracing of sustainability. That’s really what a lot of this talks to. Can we do things more efficiently? Can we be better stewards of the environment? We’ve got low GWP, which is really affecting a lot of our refrigeration and our air conditioning spaces where we’re looking for how do we make this an environment that we want to leave our next generations and really drive great value?
Kyle Uebelhor: Right. It’s interesting you say that. So these macroeconomic trends are actually coming from the customers. And really playing back what I’ve known about Copeland, you’re transforming from being one of the best well known product organizations in compression and refrigeration and HVAC to one that’s going to be more customer centric. That customer centric journey is interesting. How did you get there?
Andy Baker: So, you know, it’s interesting. I agree, a lot of the things that Copeland has done well, we’ve been a product company, technology company. You look at the number of patents we have in all these areas. It’s astounding. And this is not slowing our innovation on those things. The industry is pushing us though, the customers, some legislatively, to become more powerful stewards of the environment and everything that we do, which is good because we’re good at that, we’re good at manufacturing, we’ve got good operation practice. But now we’re looking at it, how do we become even better at what we do, and how do we really put customer first, which is always the key, and setting ourselves up for this commercial journey to excellence? It really starts with kind of looking at what we do well and how do we even do it better, because we do a lot well, we really do when it comes to the customer.
Kyle Uebelhor: Yeah, I’ve known you guys for a while and that is true. You have a lot of really good things going, so it’s a capitalization on the momentum that’s there. But it is a mindset shift. You are really beginning to think customer first, which means a rethink of how your product teams, your marketing teams, your sales teams, your service organization all come together. That’s a tremendous challenge. And you’re at the start. So I want to change it just a little bit right now. Talk to us a little bit about the beginning of a commercial excellence journey and what was the impetus for the start point?
Andy Baker: Yeah. I mean it’s really interesting, so we’re at month 17, 18 right now of being a standalone company. We’ve got a leadership team that really is putting us into a position to succeed. We’ve been fixing a lot of things that might have been not high priorities, but they’re leading us to an organization that’s becoming very adaptive, very transformational, very employee centric, which is one of the keys here. And as we look at that, we’ve been fixing a lot of things in a lot of our process. But looking at our commercial organization, we’ve started the journey with you is looking at what do we do well? What do our teams think we do well? What do we think we can do better? And that interrogative process that we’ve been through, even talking to customers with you, has actually given us opportunities to kind of be self-introspective.
Kyle Uebelhor: Yeah, I think that self-reflection is key because you want to be who you are but better you know. And that’s a real opportunity out there in front of you. And as we think about the start of the journey, you’re going to have to bring more people into the conversation and change management is big. There’s probably a lot you don’t know yet. How are you and the team thinking about setting up for the change management effort, and what are the things going on in your world to help sort of begin the communication process?
Andy Baker: So one of the first keys was the fact that when we looked at our organization, it wasn’t just people like me or my peers and contemporaries, it was the whole organization. We really wanted the feedback of the people that were first in line, speaking to the customer, working with the customer. So that started the change management process. It was that openness. And the feedback that we got from that was pretty powerful and gave us opportunities to explore even things in the short term. But when you look at where it’s going to take us, it’s going to come down to us being transparent about what’s going on. We’ve got constant communication. We’ve got to be engaged with the team members. We know that there’s going to be multiple phases. We’ve talked about this not being a short-term exercise. This is a long sprint, maybe a mile, maybe a little bit further. But we want people to know that this is going to be transformative and it’s going to take time. We’re going to have more people get involved in the conversation, looking at how do we do this? How do we involve people? How do we make sure we don’t miss things? And I think that’s what I’m seeing us set up right now is this willingness to listen and understand. How do we make it better?
Kyle Uebelhor: Yeah, it’s thoughtful, it’s thoughtful, it’s planned. But you also plan for the things that might change during the process, too.
Andy Baker: Yeah. I mean, you know, again, change management is a more formal process now than it’s ever been, right? With a lot of us. But it’s about not knowing where you’re going to yet, and it’s about being adaptable in that journey. And I see that the willingness to be engaging with you and with our leadership on, okay, what’s going to be the priority? And I see that being an important thing, because I think the priority is going to shift with certain things we learn and putting that customer first, which the customer is first, but making it so it’s felt in every part of the organization, I think, is going to be one of the most impactful things that we do.
Kyle Uebelhor: I think you just defined commercial excellence quite well. It’s customer first but impacting the whole organization. I’m excited about where this is going to go. This is going to be an incredible journey for you, and I think hopefully we’ll have a chance to catch back up in about a year to see where things have turned to.
Andy Baker: Yeah, I’m really excited. I mean, the journey has been great so far and I just know it’s going to pick up speed and it’s going to be exciting. And I think we stand ready to embrace it. Yeah.
Kyle Uebelhor: Great. Well thanks a lot Andy. It was good talking to you. Good catching you up again and do appreciate it.
Andy Baker: No, appreciate the time. Thanks.
