Merging marques

There have been few occasions when two well-known optical companies have merged, let alone two whose brands have widespread recognition among consumers. But when it was announced last August that as of January 2004 Pentax Vision would merge with Seiko Optical, that was exactly what would have to happen. The coming together of these two Japanese names' ophthalmic lens divisions has been a massive task. The merger affects operations worldwide and in the UK this has meant Pentax relocating from its Slough headquarters to join Seiko on Norville Optical's site at Paul Street, Gloucester. Pentax and Seiko are enormous corporations. Seiko has a turnover of £1.8bn, generated through operations including watches and clocks, while Pentax has a turnover of £1bn from various lens-related industries including photography. Ophthalmic lenses in both corporations accounted for around 10 per cent of turnover. The two companies decided it would be easier logistically to merge Pentax into Seiko Optical Products, bringing together the former's expertise in lens design with the latter's proficiency in material science (Seiko was first to develop 1.74 index). Further synergies become apparent when you look at each brand's penetration in European markets. Where one has less market share the other is buoyant. Seiko is strong in Germany, home to Seiko Optical Europe's head office, where Pentax is less established, for example. Outgoing Pentax Vision director David Moore explains that the merged enterprise will use the strength that one brand has in one market to facilitate the other. The Seiko ophthalmic lens brand has been distributed in the UK by Norville for 20 years, while Pentax Vision has been managed in-house at Pentax's UK base. Last October it was revealed that Pentax's lab in Berkshire would move to Gloucester and weeks later the relocation was in progress. On November 28, Pentax closed production in Slough in order to transfer the surfacing, tinting and testing machinery, as well as all the semi-finished stock to Gloucester. Throughout December, Japan handled all orders while the new team set up a duplicate of the Slough IT system in Gloucester to allow as seamless an integration as possible. John Conway, newly appointed general manager of the merged operation who took over from David Moore on April 1, says the hardest part of the move was transferring the surfacing machinery. 'It was lifted up from Slough, installed here in a weekend, which then gave us one month to get it back up and running.' He adds that a move of this magnitude would always cause some degree of disruption. 'We have received our share of challenges,' he explains. 'However, this progression allows both companies the opportunity to further expand their overall performance as the global leader in the high-end lens category, and we believe this will deliver commercial benefit for our customers.'