Integration of General Cable and Prysmian Group powers solid performance of MMS in North America
MMS Business Unit Director Patrick Jacobi discusses how he and his team will build on strengths in the North American market created by the integration
Integration of General Cable and Prysmian Group powers solid performance of MMS in North America
Complementary product lines create growth in North America
Nowhere have the benefits of the integration between Prysmian Group and General Cable been more visible than in the Multi Media Solution Business Unit in North America, a geographic region that was a driver of the business unit’s growth last year.
Multi Media Solutions (MMS), which accounted for 28% of Telecom’s 1.6 billion euros in sales in 2019, makes fibre and copper indoor cables for both fixed and mobile communications. These cables are used in data centres; in all kinds of venues (hospitals, stadiums, airports, universities); and in homes, offices and factories. These cables also support the rollout of 5G communications, which is poised for exponential growth. Prysmian Group said in its 2019 results statement that solid performance in the MMS business unit was mainly driven by North America.
Multi Media Solutions (MMS), which accounted for 28% of Telecom’s 1.6 billion euros in sales in 2019, makes fibre and copper indoor cables for both fixed and mobile communications. These cables are used in data centres; in all kinds of venues (hospitals, stadiums, airports, universities); and in homes, offices and factories. These cables also support the rollout of 5G communications, which is poised for exponential growth. Prysmian Group said in its 2019 results statement that solid performance in the MMS business unit was mainly driven by North America.
The merger of Prysmian Group and General Cable in 2018 has brought together two very complementary sets of cable products particularly in North America. Prysmian was strong in optical fibers, whereas General Cable was focused on copper products with GenSPEED as a leading brand for Category Cables.
“The fact that we have complementary product sets has done a couple of things for us,” says Patrick Jacobi, MMS Business Unit Director at the Group’s NA headquarters in Highland Heights. “One is that we now have a full product portfolio for enterprise applications. General Cable had a strong copper product offering, sales force structure and distributor relationships. Integrating with Prysmian Group’s strength on optical fiber cables, has allowed us to leverage the historical expertise of both organizations.”
The integration called for building new relationships, and creating a new level of understanding about the synergies flowing from the combination. The team “has done very well in creating synergies at global and local levels,” says Pat.
In addition to a broader product portfolio and new manufacturing capacity, the group has leveraged branding and General Cable’s product legacy in the MMS market by combining the entire MMS portfolio under the GenSPEED Brand and rebranding the optical fibre product coming out of Prysmian’s North Carolina plant as GenSPEED Fiber, resulting in an expanded copper & fibre full offering.
The challenge now for MMS in North America is to build on the strength of this combination.
“We are doing a lot of education of our sales force on fiber and new products available for them to sell. And educating our customers on the expanded product offering, which is a combination of copper and fiber and what we can bring to the table in terms of a combined organization.”
Patrick Jacobi
MMS Business Unit Director
Jacobi believes that the demand for additional communications bandwidth and increasingly connected devices will call for further enhanced products in the North American market.
“Our positive result in 2019 was driven by our 10 Gig Category 6A genspeed,” he said. “We recently released a series of enhancements to our Cat 6A offerings with the launch of GenSPEED 10 MTP and UTP Cat 6A Cables for Riser/CMR applications; GenSPEED 10 UTP Category 6A Indoor/Outdoor Cable and a new Pull-Pac® packaging for Category 6A products. With these, and new developments to come, we continue to look for ways to enhance our GenSPEED product portfolio and provide real value to our customers,” said Pat.