By Joe Boomgaard | MiBiz
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WEST MICHIGAN — When companies think outside the box, they can find themselves innovating in industries in which they had never done business before.

That was the case when executives at Lacks Trim Systems, a division of Lacks Enterprises Inc., took a look at the company’s capabilities and saw an opportunity to diversify out of the automotive marketplace. The division’s mainstay has been to use an advanced finishing technology to add chrome flair to vehicle grilles and exterior trim.

But in an effort to diversify, Lacks executives started thinking about how that specific technology it developed for the automotive industry might be useful to other sectors. What they came up with was Coach House Accents, an offshoot that would develop and market architectural design elements for home exteriors.

“We’re taking a technology that we have and that we developed and are bringing that to a different marketplace,” Ross Rivard, marketing director for Lacks Wheel Trim Systems, told MiBiz. “With Coach House, we take the technology and figure out what other markets are adaptable.”

Rivard and his colleagues believe there’s a significant market potential for the product. He said a home’s exterior can be very disjointed from an aesthetic standpoint, and Coach House products attempt to bring some consistency and coordination into a home’s design. Rivard posits that more people are investing in their homes given the down economy, versus electing to go on a fancy vacation.

“We take our technology — plating and injection molding and design capabilities — and bring a design approach that allows the coordination of design elements around the home. We can start at the curb and wrap all the way round the house,” he said.

With Coach House, Lacks enters a new market and begins marketing direct to consumers for the first time, albeit through garage door dealer networks to start. It is starting from scratch and is taking a long-term view that this product will need to develop over a longer timeframe than a product for the more familiar automotive market, he said.

And because the new focus transcends capabilities and technologies in all three divisions of the company — Trim System, Wheel Trim Systems and Plastic Plate — Rivard and his team have a unique and at times challenging view of the company and its structures.

“(It’s easier once you) prove a process and then carry it forward. With Coach House, it’s new, but I’m driving with my team. It’s a lot easier to roll out when people have the background — and can see it worked,” he said.

But if successful, what Coach House products and aftermarket truck products, Lacks’ other diversification move, offer the manufacturer is an ability to balance out the business over the long term. While its main business is as an OEM supplier, Lacks wanted to gain some countercyclical momentum as well, which the home and aftermarket products provide.

Rivard was among a handful of recent participants in the NewNorth Center for Design in Business Future Thinking program, which helps companies start to look beyond strategic planning and forecasting to how the future world situation could impact businesses like Lacks.

“I’m a strategic planning guy — it’s what I do, it’s what my background is,” Rivard said. “There’s a great deal of interest in how we take that next step.”

Stephanie Elhart, director of client relations and communications at NewNorth, said the program helps business people get away from thinking through the lens of the present to see the possibilities of 20 or 30 years down the road and then prepare for those possibilities.

“These are things people can start leveraging and making bigger decisions and changes,” Elhart told MiBiz. “They can prepare for different options and look at how to move forward. All companies struggle with that. It’s an uncomfortable process when you first admit that maybe we need to change.”

While NewNorth helps people get to thinking differently about their businesses, Elhart said the key is to also provide tools for them to apply what they learn and be able to get management buy-in for the change.

“Everyone is maxed out on time, and this is a way for people to dip in and get fed a little. We want them to take the tools and what they’re learning and go back to their companies and start enlightening,” she said.

The Future Thinking course is led by Lloyd Walker, a technology entrepreneur and strategic planning and product development specialist with experience at NASA, Honda and other Fortune 500 companies.

Walker told MiBiz that there’s something special about the innovation that’s going on in West Michigan, where he sees a real appetite to put innovation concepts to work.

“I’m excited about the potential. You have a history in West Michigan of making things. The other component, because of the (high rate of) family and private ownership, is that decisions are made to move that don’t get kicked up into committee or to a shareholder discussion,” he said. “Innovation needs to happen, and I see the appetite here. … The challenge in many ways here is to understand your unique value and place in the world where things are changing.”