In January of 2015, industry vet Jay Wanamaker was appointed president and CEO of Roland Corporation U.S.
In the ensuing year-plus, the company has experienced tremendous growth, with sales up across a number of categories and with significant new hires and appointments.
MMR recently spoke with Wanamaker about his first 12 months at the helm at Roland and what’s next for one of the true giants of MI.
The past year has seen considerable expansion of Roland’s U.S. team with a number of new hires and appointments in sales and management. What’s behind the growth and how have these personnel changes impacted the company’s efficiency?
Jay Wanamaker: I am happy to state that Roland U.S. is in a growth mode. We have achieved double-digit growth, and we’re definitely moving in the right direction with a positive outlook. We’ve grown our resources and increased our workforce by 20 percent. The sales support we have out in the field increased by 20 percent as well. One of my primary goals in 2015 was to improve the service to our dealer community, with dedicated efforts to support dealer-to-end-user sales and marketing. Our ability to cater to the dealers’ specific sales and marketing needs has gotten even stronger.
Roland continues to be a leader in electronic drums. In our November 2015 dealer survey on the topic, 60 percent of participants named Roland as their strongest seller in that product segment. What do you plan to do to maintain dominance in this area?
We’ve just hired industry veteran Mark Nelson to oversee our percussion business. He has served in executive roles at Guitar Center, KMC, and most recently DW. He’s going to take our drum business to the next level. And the innovative new products and market segments within the division will help maintain and grow our strong market share in the category. And we will of course continue to support the hybrid drumming community and the dealers’ add-on business efforts.
Of course Roland, including BOSS, has a significant footprint across many MI product categories – pianos & keyboards, guitar & bass, synths, amps, pro audio & video. What areas have seen the most growth lately? Do you have any upcoming or new product releases you expect to have a significant impact in 2016?
Roland’s high-tech market segment, which includes synths and dance/DJ products, was Roland’s biggest growth area in 2015. We experienced more than 20 percent growth, led by the JD-XA and JD-Xi analog/digital crossover synths, the AIRA products, of course, and the surprise launch of the Roland Boutique line, with more than 7,000 units sold in the first week! Our big launch at winter NAMM was the new Roland Accessories line including premium cables, instrument bags, stands, lights, benches and lifestyle gear. All of our accessories support our products and our dealers will enjoy healthy margins on the line. We’ve answered our customers’ wishes with our newest analog products like the SYSTEM-500 modular synths, made in conjunction with Malekko, based in Portland, Oregon. And with cajons being the best-selling percussion products in the industry, we took a unique approach and developed the EC-10 Electronic Layered Cajon, Roland’s first foray into this category. The EC-10s will be shipping immediately following winter NAMM this year.
Roland recently took home the MMR Dealers’ Choice Award for Home Digital Keyboard of the Year for (the RP Series). Care to comment on the win and the product line?
We’ve made real strides with the action and the sound of our digital pianos. Progress has also been made with our piano dealer relationships and piano marketing. Growth for this category has been sizable in 2015, for the entire home piano category, actually. Antonio Ferranti joined the piano team in 2015 as well, as the piano strategy manager. Antonio’s rich business background in sales and marketing, most notably as the recent vice president of sales at Alfred Music, has been a huge asset for us so far. Antonio has signed new high-caliber artists like the world renowned Jim Brickman and has supported the launch of new programs like 10-year warranties for select pianos.
What are your goals for Roland, going forward?
Our executive team recently announced Roland 2.0, which is the next phase of strategic growth for Roland. This includes topics like global content strategy, local marketing, dealer communication, speed to market, grass roots events, etc. We will be focused on not just making new products but making products that provide real solutions for our customers and our dealers. Supporting and participating in grass roots efforts such as #808day, Detroit Movement, The Desert Stars Festival, SXSW, Ultra Fest, and many more all factor into this phase of Roland 2.0. Getting the products in the hands of key influencers and helping them spread the Roland story is at the forefront of this phase as well. We’re more proactive about getting new gear into the hands of influencers then ever before. We’ve also hosted a number of VIP events in key markets to expose our products to the key artists, producers and press in those areas.
For both Roland and the industry, in general, what are your expectations for 2016?
We fully expect to achieve our company’s growth goals in 2016 and beyond. And we will continue to explore new market segments to keep the product offering fresh and exciting for the end user and dealer communities. And we’ll also continue to leverage the wealth of global content resources we have as a company and create systems to seamlessly share them with our Roland and BOSS user communities.
