Dan Calkins, Chairman and CEO of Benjamin Moore, presented an insightful keynote address at this year’s Eastern Coatings Show in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He spoke about leading his business through the extreme challenges of the last four years, and chasing the “new normal." PCI interviewed Calkins shortly after his address to the conference, to get a closer look into his unique perspective.

PCI: The coatings industry has seen its fair share of trials over the last four years. Thinking back on 2020 and 2021, what were some of the biggest challenges your company faced, and how did you address them?

Calkins: The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 kicked off a series of challenges that affected not only the industry, but life as we knew it both at work and at home. With business and travel shutdowns, stay-at-home orders, rising cases and hospitalizations, social distancing, and overall uncertainties, we were suddenly dealing with a situation we’d never experienced before. Three areas of focus came to the forefront for our leadership team – the health and safety of our employees, the wellbeing of our customers, and maintaining the reputation of our brand. As paint and coatings manufacturing was deemed essential, we were able to stay operational and we took swift action in a number of areas. To name a few: 

1. We made immediate adjustments to support our retailer network with longer payment terms; 
2. Quickly stood up an enhanced version of our e-commerce experience so that consumers could order more products online for curbside pickup at their local retailer; 
3. Adopted new tools and technology to enable our workforce to stay connected and productive; and 
4. Pivoted our marketing strategy to reinforce our support of the contractor and our retailer network through these challenging times. 

2021 brought its own set of challenges, while the pandemic continued on. Some of the challenges that directly affected our operations included:

1. The Texas Freeze and its impact on raw material availability; 
2. Inflationary pressures within the industry; 
3. Supply chain labor shortages and transportation challenges, and more. 

We worked hard to combat these issues with actions including tolling, manufacturing prioritization and the expansion of one of our largest facilities, a focus on recruiting to fill open positions, and more. Amidst these efforts, we had a major opportunity with painting contractors and since then have been able to gain incremental market share by keeping them and their needs at the center – supplying inventory when others couldn’t, delaying pricing actions, focusing on contractor retention, and making believers out of new users.

PCI: 2022 and 2023 have brought their own unique challenges, with Russia’s war on Ukraine, inflation, and the housing recession. How have these issues affected your business, and what actions has Benjamin Moore taken to manage them?

Calkins: The challenges we faced in 2020/2021 pushed us to quickly build a more resilient business poised to weather any future storms. As such, we were able to proactively combat the next series of challenges threatening the business – an overall industry slow-down coupled with record inflation and declining home sales, and the related consumer sentiment. To ensure the continued health of our business and that of our independent retailers, we remained laser-focused on contractor retention, sustained our innovation funnel with product enhancements and introductions, supported the opening of new outlets, and contained expense and capital.

PCI: How is your company changed today because of the trials our industry faced in recent years?

Calkins: Despite some unprecedented challenges in recent years, we experienced significant growth – both operationally and in the business, all of which puts us in a better position today than ever before. We have expanded our footprint and helped get our retailers in a better financial position, and built a more resilient supply chain and strong continuity plans that will enable us to weather any future challenges ahead. On top of that, we’ve refreshed our business strategy, enhanced our digital offering for today’s consumer, and strengthened relationships with our retailers, partners and people – who are critical to our success today and into the future.

PCI: What is driving your R&D and coatings development today?

Calkins: R&D and coatings development at Benjamin Moore are largely driven by two tenets – our customers and our commitment to innovation. When discussing new product introductions or enhancements to existing products, it’s important to us that we keep our customers and their needs at the center – seeking to understand the challenges they face and how we can help to solve them through our product portfolio. Our R&D team sits at the forefront of technology and innovation, consistently working to develop best-in-class formulations and contributing to many firsts in the industry. 

PCI: Can you give a few examples of how Benjamin Moore has embraced digitalization? Do you see a future for AI at the company?

Calkins: Over the last few years, we have been focused on enhancing our existing digital experiences and building new ones that are beginning to roll out this year. In addition, redesigning our customer website and incorporating a new digital color experience to enable easier color search and selection, we have also enhanced our e-commerce platform for today’s online consumer – while tying it directly to a pick-up in-store program to ensure that our network of locally owned retailers are benefiting from that business. More recently, we introduced ‘Betty’ – paying homage to the brand’s original color consultant – now serving as a virtual assistant on our website to help consumers narrow down their selection process to find their perfect color. Though parts of our business will always be more tactile based on how our end users prefer to experience our products and colors, digital transformation continues to be an area of focus for us, and we’ll continue to introduce offerings that enable broader access to our offering in ways that today’s consumer is choosing to shop.