When Brian Seiderman was named vice president, sales and marketing for Samsung HVAC North America in January 2015, he said Samsung would “reinvent” the HVAC industry, through its “high-tech industry” approach to the HVAC sector.
Now, we offer more exclusive comments from Brian Seiderman, on Samsung’s aggressive but well-thought-out plan to bring what he says are some much-needed changes to HVAC. — Ed.
CB: What is Samsung’s current strategy for the North American market? How similar is it to what you have successfully accomplished in electronics?
Brian Seiderman: “Samsung HVAC’s charter is to be a premium solution provider of HVAC equipment for the residential and commercial markets; just like Samsung has created in the electronics, mobile phones, communications, appliances and other industries. Bringing Samsung electronics’ experience allows the HVAC division to take advantage of the premium brand and our sustainable competitive advantage (SCA), and to transfer a product “refresh” philosophy to HVAC just as we’ve done for mobile phones.”
CB: What was the strategy behind the purchase of Quietside?
Brian Seiderman: “Samsung’s distributed ductless was provided through Quietside till August 2014 for the North American market. Samsung purchased Quietside, Samsung-North American Master Distributor to accelerate the growth by allowing the Samsung brand and financial strength to accelerate growth. The time is now for Samsung to transform the HVAC industry, as Samsung has done in other industries.”
CB: Any executive moves you can share?
Brian Seiderman: “In our first 100 days, we have added key HVAC industry leaders for sales, marketing, technical services and operations, and plan to add additional personnel to allow us to meet our high growth targets.”
CB: What new technologies can the HVAC industry expect from Samsung?
Brian Seiderman: “For the residential markets we will move towards Samsung “one-home” or Samsung “smart-home” concepts, to allow consumers to be serviced from one electronics company, Samsung. For the commercial markets we will be focused on improving our breadth of offerings to the VRF market segment. We currently hold many premium points such as highest efficiency, largest capacity air-cooled and water-cooled units, premium controls/WiFi technology and will add greater breadth.
We will branch out from VRF/ductless to additional HVAC offerings to better serve owners, consulting engineers and contractors.
— Brian Seiderman
“We will also branch out from VRF/ductless to additional HVAC offerings to better serve owners, consulting engineers and contractors.”
CB: Samsung made a splash at the AHR Expo. What do you reflect back upon as the most exciting and promising part of the show as it relates to Samsung’s U.S. presence?
Brian Seiderman: “Samsung was able to bring the Samsung brand to AHR for the first time and it was the buzz at the show. We are being contacted by great new employees, customers and value added partners to take the HVAC industry by storm.”
CB: From both residential and commercial contractor perspectives, what questions were you receiving from those contractors at the AHR Expo? And then, what were your answers to those questions?
Brian Seiderman: “Many customers were surprised to see Samsung in HVAC and welcomed us. In the end, the questions centered on what products and services we would provide to meet their HVAC needs.”
CB: What motivated Samsung’s entry into the U.S. HVAC marketplace?
Brian Seiderman: “Residentially, Samsung HVAC helps complete the consumer offering to the home. Samsung HVAC -NA allows Samsung to grow into the B-to-B market from the B-to-C market.”
CB: What does Samsung believe the U.S. HVAC industry is most in need of today?
Brian Seiderman: “Samsung believes a great need of the HVAC industry is quicker product development cycles, more complete offerings and improved service and support.”
CB: What are unique properties of Samsung’s residential product that will be of interest to and of most benefit to contractors?
Brian Seiderman: “Ease of installation. The ‘Triangle’ design would be a great example of ease of installation. Samsung controls and WiFi simplicity versus the competitors, third-party control improvements have a key SCA — consumer simplicity and mobile functionally/commonality.”
CB: What are unique properties of Samsung’s commercial VRF product that will be of interest to and of most benefit to contractors?
Brian Seiderman: Samsung has the largest outdoor units (air and water) on the market, up to 16-ton air-cooled, single module, and multi-modules to 44/48 tons.”
CB: What types of training support is Samsung providing for contractors and distributors who are considering taking on the Samsung product line?
Brian Seiderman: “We are working on expanding our offering of contractor training to include: sales, installation, commissioning, troubleshooting and HVAC know-how. But you can expect even more in this area from Samsung, to help differentiate Samsung from others as the premium offering.”
CB: What progress has been made in the distribution sectors? And as a result of this activity, which regions of the country can expect to see Samsung HVAC products available, and when?”
Brian Seiderman: “Much growth. Success stories are happening with Samsung sales growth. We are trying to grow our business through distribution that has a contractor focus, as well as the engineered solutions via the Applied Manufacturer Representation sales channel.
“We are aggressively working with existing customers, first to grow their business, as well as adding new sales partners in areas that we have limited or no representation at the moment. However, it is a given that Samsung will help to reinvent the HVAC market.”