FIRST PERSON

5 Questions for…

Ross Brownlee, CEO of Hilco Vision Company

ross Brownlee is the new CEO and member of the Board of Directors at Hilco Vision Company, and he brings a wealth of wholesale and retail experience in the optical industry to the post. He spent 18 years at Safilo, the last six of which were as president and COO for the Americas and president of its retail arm, Solstice LLC, with responsibility for sales, product planning and development, licensing and marketing, operations, and finance. Here Brownlee shares his insights and hopes for the future of Hilco.

eb: Hilco has made two big acquisitions, B&S and Lexxoo. How will this affect your brand portfolio?

rb: From a product standpoint there is a considerable overlap in what both Hilco Vision and B&S offer their customers. Both have at their core a desire to bring a breadth of qualitative solutions to address the needs of both professional customers and consumers. One of the first steps post-acquisition is to take the best of what each party does and look to seize new opportunities, both in Europe and the U.S.

eb: How will the internationalization of Hilco affect day-to-day business for your U.S. customers?

rb: The U.S. and U.K. customers will only see more solutions offered by Hilco as a consequence of this acquisition. The same is true of the European customers served by B&S (notably in lens care and safety eyewear). The goal is to celebrate the strengths of each party only for the benefit of our customers.

eb: Hilco is known as a company that offers everything. What do you see as the future of Hilco Vision?

rb: The range of solutions that Hilco brings to the table with dependability and speed is staggering. Key to our ongoing success is to segment the 30,000 products and communicate more effectively targeted solutions that will really help our diverse customers address their differing needs.

eb: What do you see as the future for the eyecare industry overall, and challenges facing ECPs?

rb: The marketplace is evolving at pace. ECPs are under pressure to see more patients for less money while guaranteeing service quality. Retailers are being pushed to either inflate retail pricing to cover costs or enter more aggressively the low end, where margins at lower retail pricing remain palatable. But we have to ask ourselves: Is the patient able to navigate all this noise?

eb: How can ECPs find success in today’s market?

rb: Those that can sell on value (price and quality) rather than on pure price will win. Those that can build trust and goodwill beyond the “transaction” will win.