Feeney Provides Update on Diamond's Integration
into Belron US

Belron US chief executive officer (CEO) Tom Feeney took the time this week in an exclusive interview with glassBYTEs.com™/AGRR magazine to provide an update on the integration of Diamond Glass into Belron US. Belron CEO Gary Lubner also was on-hand to discuss the integration and a number of industry issues as well. (CLICK HERE for related story.)

Tom Feeney

Currently, the main goal is communication to Diamond employees, Feeney said.

"We're three weeks into this and our first focus was on communicating to all of the Diamond associates how much we welcome them into our company, and we wanted to meet as many of them as possible as early as we could to not only put the words out there but also to reach out and answer their questions," he said. Earlier the day of the interview, Feeney and Lubner had traveled to the first Diamond Glass shop ever opened in Scranton, Pa., and have spent much time at the company's headquarters in Kingston, Pa., since the acquisition was announced on June 20. So far, the communication has been positive, he said.

"If the markets we visited today are any example, then we really will have an easier time than we would have imagined," said Feeney. "[Diamond employees are] very open to us, they're very open to integration, they're very open to taking care of customers [and] doing the right things for their businesses, which is an absolute alignment of what we're all about."

While much of the response has been positive, Feeney noted that one difficult part is figuring out which Diamond employees will stay on with Belron US as the integration moves forward.

"There are redundancies [in positions between the two companies], and what we committed to was to tell them within the first 60 days, or no later than 60 days, the finality of what we're going to do," he said.

He added that Diamond staff is very much involved in this process.

"Frankly, we are incorporating the information from the Diamond team, about what they think we ought to do, so there's a real collaboration," he said. "In fact, that was the theme that I shared with the field guys today, that my view is the keys to success in an acquisition like this are communication, cooperation and collaboration. And if we keep these things in mind and keep the associates at the forefront, along with the customer, we're going to have a very successful integration."

Throughout the integration, Belron US is issuing continuous communication to Diamond employees through various routes, including 800 numbers set up specifically for their questions and publishing a newsletter called "Integration Insider."

While Feeney couldn't say exactly when the integration would be finalized, he did note that it will vary with different aspects of the company, and that Belron US staff is working to make any difficulties in the process to go smoothly.

"Belron has a fantastic reputation for how they treat people and we're certainly going to carry that forward with the way we treat anybody who's displaced," he said.

Feeney also spoke about a number of industry issues and his stance on these. Stay tuned to glassBYTEs.com™ in coming days for more of Feeney's insights and the exclusive interview.

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