A company by another name

BOSTON - Four months after Schneider Electric purchased Andover Controls, it has merged the building automation company with its other business in that sector - TAC - and given both a new identity. Now both companies will be known as Tour Andover Controls - a name that draws from a previous identity of TAC, Tour & Andersson Controls, and the brand recognition of Andover Controls. “It’s a nice tip of the hat for both of the companies, as well as recognizing brand awareness,” said Rick Focke, marketing director of Tour Andover Controls. The new identity for the company, which employs 2,700 people worldwide with offices in 70 countries and has a $700 million projected revenue in 2004, is not the only change. According to Dean Meyer, president of the company, organizational changes on the front office side, such as forming a new management team, were recently completed. “We’ve done all the easy stuff,” Meyer said. ‘We have touched upon the front office stuff pretty well. And then over the course of the next six months we have the hard stuff to do.” That process includes such tasks as working out legal matters and integrating benefits packages. According to Meyer, all the work to integrate the two organizations is worth the toil. “These things are never easy and there is always a lot of emotion involved,” Meyer said. “Overall from old and new, we hit a home run on the why. Now we have some implementation to do.” Meyer said the “why” for combining the two companies includes the combined market strength as well as their shared vision of open systems. The company now lists two headquarters - one in Malmo, Sweden, the former headquarters of TAC, and another in Andover, Mass. It also has doubled its product development team. “It’s exciting with any new product development since we’ve doubled our engineering staff,” said Focke. “There is a good group in Sweden and a good group in Andover.” Meyer said Tour Andover Controls will continue to use its inside sales departments as well as its outside representatives for product distribution. “(Both companies) have extremely strong direct sales offices and extremely strong independent reps in the market,” Meyer said. “We will continue to maintain that distribution channel.”