308win
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Article in business section. I believe that the Columbus PD just selected S&W as their handgun supplier.
Text of article follows but I did not copy the pics.
Text of article follows but I did not copy the pics.
TARGET MARKETING
Smith & Wesson uses brand strength, new products to regain lost sales
By Adam Gorlick ASSOCIATED PRESS
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Smith & Wesson may be best recognized as the brand of choice for Dirty Harry, the movie cop who warned punks his .44 Magnum was "the most powerful handgun in the world." But that was in 1971, and much has changed in the past 36 years. Police officers want lighter-weight pistols than the bulky steel revolver "Dirty" Harry Callahan barely concealed under a sport coat. Soldiers need foolproof weapons that won’t get jammed by the desert sands.
There are guns now more powerful than the .44, and Smith & Wesson has realized it can’t get by on its name, or Dirty Harry’s, alone.
That’s why Mike Golden, Smith & Wesson’s CEO for the past two years, has targeted new technologies and sales to the military and police departments to ensure the company’s future.
Except for the pistol-shaped cufflinks he sometimes wears, there isn’t much about him that says "gun guy." A past corporate boss at Black & Decker, Kohler and the Stanley Works, Golden, 52, knew more about power tools and toilets than pistols.
"When I joined the company, I had never shot a firearm before in my life," Golden said. "I tell people the board wasn’t looking to find a marksman."
When he took over the 155-year-old company, its earnings were flat. The country was at war, and the military’s handgun contracts were all going to Italy’s Beretta. Handgun sales to police departments, a market that Smith & Wesson once practically owned, were going mostly to Glock, an Austrian company.
"The company had been under-managed and undermarketed for the last 10 to 15 years, at least," Golden said. Golden hired a Washington lobbying firm to go after government contracts. In the past two years, the company has made four deals worth $20 million to make the 9 mm pistols the Army is giving to security forces in Afghanistan.
Smith & Wesson’s earnings have experienced double-digit growth since Golden took over. The company’s work force stands at about 900 nonunion employees, 200 of which were hired in the past two years.
The company reported $50.8 million in sales for its second quarter that ended in October, an increase of 43 percent from the same period in the year before. It expects sales for the 2008 fiscal year to be about $320 million.
About 75 percent of the company’s sales are in the sportinggoods market, which has remained steady despite guncontrol efforts.
But Golden still has his sights set on government sales.
This year, the military handgun contract that Beretta has had a lock on for nearly 20 years is expected to come up for bid. Analysts say that deal could fetch about $310 million, and predict that Smith & Wesson’s chances to land it are good, but far from guaranteed.
When Glock introduced a lightweight polymer pistol for police departments in the 1980s, Smith & Wesson’s managers "thought cops would never buy a plastic gun," Golden said. They could only watch as police departments shifted to pistols made by other companies.
Golden pushed the company to come up with a product that could compete, and last year Smith & Wesson launched its M &P (Military and Police) line of polymer pistols. Smith & Wesson has so far climbed back to about 10 percent of sales to police departments, but is still dwarfed by Glock’s 65 percent control of the market.
