LG's US structure intact despite global switch-ups

December 3, 2010 by Dave Haynes

There must have been a bunch of speculation and uncertainty out there to prompt LG to issue a “News Alert” to effectively reiterate that nothing’s changed in its US display business operations.

This just popped up in my Inbox:

In the wake of reports about a global corporate restructuring affecting the LG Electronics Business Solutions Company, LG Electronics USA confirmed today that the commercial display business in the United States remains intact.

From a corporate structure standpoint, LG Business Solutions, now known as “LG Commercial Displays” has been incorporated into LG’s Home Entertainment business unit. However, in the United States, the Commercial Displays business will continue to operate as a separate business catering to the varied specialized needs of the U.S. business-to-business (B2B) market.

“This move better positions the business to bring the latest display technologies to LG’s valued B2B customers,” said Wayne Park, president of LG Electronics USA, Inc. “While capitalizing on the synergies with consumer electronics on a worldwide basis, LG Commercial Displays will continue to operate as a separate business in the United States, focused on the B2B market.”

Park named Regional Business Leader Y.K. Cho as head of the U.S. Commercial Displays business. Ron Snaidauf, vice president, Commercial Displays, continues to lead the lodging, hospitality and health care segments, while Jeff Dowell, vice president, Digital Signage, continues to lead the digital signage and monitor business areas addressing the restaurant, retail, education and industrial markets.

“As the new head of Commercial Displays in the U.S., I am excited at the opportunity to lead our aggressive growth strategy for 2011 and beyond,” Cho said. “The corporate restructuring means that we’ll have stronger product development capabilities that will enable us to provide highly innovative and unique solutions for all of our U.S. B2B customers’ needs.”

Park emphasized that LG’s commitment to the B2B business in the United States remains very strong. And while the corporate structure in Korea has changed, the unit continues to operate as a stand-alone business in the United States, focused on leading-edge technology solutions for the hospitality, lodging, health care, education, retail and digital signage markets, he explained.

Good to see Dowell and Snaidauf in place. Don’t really know Ron but do know Jeff, and he has been pretty much 24/7 on packaging up the digital signage offer since he started in mid-2009, coming over from 3M. The SuperSign thing that really is a turnkey offer (apart from strategy and creative) is interesting, and I’m very curious how its resonating with resellers and end-users.

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