SOLA Soliloquies

**Pete Hanlin** · 01-02-2001, 06:57 PM

I notice in the latest issue of Vision Monday that, as previously reported, SOLA will be laying off 220 additional employees (they laid off a large portion of their rep force a year or so ago) as they slow down Petaluma operations.

I've followed SOLA as a company for a number of years, and it just irks me when a new CEO starts crying about a loss of earnings due to "inefficiencies resulting from the consolidation of our regional distribution centers and ongoing restructuring activities."

Why not just come out and say that the execs at SOLA have blown it over the past few years? The biggest example of this that occurs to me (and since I'm not a highly paid lens company exec, I may be totally off the mark on this one) is SOLA's acquisition of AO in '96. For some reason, SOLA never used their distribution warehouses for AO products, never combined their Spectralite lens with AO's 55 products, never promoted the finished AR products that AO had long before SOLA, and never merged the accounts of mutual customers. Supposedly, AO and SOLA were targeting different markets, but SOLA didn't take advantage of the opportunity to make it easy to do business with both companies together...

Meanwhile, Essilor was busy buying up labs and manufacturing equipment (I guess the advent of Matrix was SOLA's foray into equipment manufacturing?).

SOLA manufactures an excellent line of lenses. Heck, I can still fit just about anyone with the age-old VIP/XL combination. I'm not a Visuality fan, but our dispensors love it- and the ViZio lines finally gave us some stock AR coated lenses to carry. Its like having a great hand, but not taking any tricks (little analogy to Spades or the card game of your choice).

My 2001 wish is that SOLA gets out of its financial doldrums and becomes vibrant and healthy (and fully staffed) again. No offense intended, but I don't want a future world with only Essilor lenses!

Pete "I guess there's some justice in it all- most of the execs have been 'laid off' too" Hanlin

**Blake** · 01-02-2001, 07:38 PM

Speaking of the Matrix machines, ours does a fine job collecting dust. We'll be getting rid of it soon, though - something to do with Sola suspending production of poly wafers just when we (LC) are trying to sell more poly!
Oh well... I guess now that I've been banished to the lab I have too much time on my hands to think about these things.

Blake

**hcjilson** · 01-03-2001, 09:49 AM

Pete, Correctamundo on their handling of AO but I think their problems started when they aced their distributors in favor of their regional warehouses.The distributors gave them a lot more exposure than they were able to get by themselves.Their pricing and excellent altenative products (VIP-XL) kept them in the ball game,but their marketing was poor so they couldn't keep up.A shame, but someone will come in and straighten it out.....or buy them!
How's the new pup?
Best Wishes from the Cape.

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Harry J

**Jim G** · 01-03-2001, 07:55 PM

Let us all hope for their survival.

Conjecture, but, it could happen like this...

Maurice Cunnife is the new Chairman of the Board of SOLA. If the name sounds vaguely familier, he was the chap who purchased AO, streamlined (pared to the bare bone?) the operation and sold the parts off to the highest bidder. The new SOLA President, Jeremy Bishop, worked for Cunnife at AO. Would it be beyond speculation that Jeromy is executing Maurice's orders? Could SOLA become a part of _________? (You fill in the blank with your best guess.)

Hmmmmmmm.

**Jeff Trail** · 01-03-2001, 08:50 PM

Not to try to make Steve feel any worse :) but I seen a couple things over the last few years that can contribute to the problem (from personal experience).
I belong to a group of labs and our monthly bill runs around $225,000..that's right $225,000 a month in lens and we contacted SOLA to see if they wanted to work a deal with us and they didn't return any calls and when they got around to it said they were not interested..so needless to say Essilor wanted to play ball and now our group of indpendent labs is Essilors first $3,000,000 a year account :-)
I know I would have tried to work a little harder if I were that SOLA rep and knew I was going to supply a group that consists of 42 wholesale labs!! Being in Col. 7 pricing at Essilor sure helps my bottom line...
Oh well sometimes it doesn't pay to not wheel and deal.. and our little original group of 8 labs (doing around a $100,000) has grown to 42 in the last two years ..Essilor,Younger, Vision Ease, Signet Armorlite didn't mind playing and now they are recouping big bucks..
BTW I agree with Pete, I really like the ViZio but man did it lack the advertising push to the opticals.. I have tried and tried to explain it to my accounts but it was an uphill battle...

Jeff "Gotta push the product if ya want it bought" Trail

**hcjilson** · 01-04-2001, 10:00 AM

Originally posted by Jim G:
Let us all hope for their survival.

Conjecture, but, it could happen like this...

Maurice Cunnife is the new Chairman of the Board of SOLA. If the name sounds vaguely familier, he was the chap who purchased AO, streamlined (pared to the bare bone?) the operation and sold the parts off to the highest bidder. The new SOLA President, Jeremy Bishop, worked for Cunnife at AO. Would it be beyond speculation that Jeromy is executing Maurice's orders? Could SOLA become a part of _________? (You fill in the blank with your best guess.)

Hmmmmmmm.

Dear Jim,

I'll try to fill in the blank with something I once heard in "SowBridge".It was something like

"Da Hay Ho!" I am not certain as to the spelling but thats the way it sounded. Best wishes from the Cape.

------------------
Harry J