October 20, 2009...Our guest editorial this week from Nikitas Nicolakis, president of New York-based Greenlight Initiative, submits a strong case that a new approach to the sales process is needed when it comes to LED lighting solutions. A full talk on this topic, aimed at decision makers and LED luminaire manufacturers alike, is on the agenda for the SSL Design Summit NY/NJ coming up Nov 3-4 at the Hyatt Regency, Jersey City... (www.SSLsummit.com).

Early on in the SSL market, there was a lot of semantic confusion between the new "semiconductor" lighting crowd and the "standard" lighting crowd. The same words had different meanings for each, and although everyone was speaking the same language, an inter-industry pocket translator would have been quite useful. A lot of that has resolved itself, but there is another "communication gap" left that is blocking market penetration for quality SSL products that are ready today, and this one exists on the much coveted end-user side of the fence.

There really is an abundance of good information for any lighting decision maker who is looking for information regarding SSL luminaires and technology, so for much of the time, it is more a question of whether a lighting decision maker is equipped to ask the proper questions regarding their purchase. Let's see... LM-79? Check... LM-80? Check... Who makes those LED chips? Check... Is there a good warranty? Check... Is the driver or transformer covered under the warranty? Check... How much is it? Ch... This is where things start to get sticky.

Once contact has been established, and the market full of over-hyped and under-performing SSL products are filtered out, the executive decision makers like the CEO, CFO, or the B.O.D., are easy to please. They speak the language of numbers-in and numbers-out, seeing the world in wonderful colors like black and red. They speak of all the great things that have been missing from our lives as of late; CASHFLOW! RETURN ON INVESTMENT! INTERNAL RATE OF RETURN! SAVINGS TURNED TO PROFIT! CAP RATES! OPERATIONAL EXPENSE REDUCTION! They make the best audience, and 100% of the time they welcome the operating expense-saving ideas that are presented... pilots ensue... numbers are checked and rechecked... and deals are agreed to! That was easy (sort of).

Then comes volume-implementation time. Some of the "get it done" people are now brought into the loop at a more detailed level, and what seemed to be the "key factors in making a lighting retrofit decision" is viewed and digested a bit differently at that lower level of the corporate chain. Let's face the facts; you need to speak a different language to audiences below the executive level. When the same scenario above applies to the non-executive decision makers, such as many of the "facilities guys" their response is simple: "There is no way I am paying $90 for a light bulb! You people are out of your minds!" What's going on? Generally, facilities personnel think in a shorter time scale. They are trained to make sure everything works, and they are buying MRO products correctly and at great prices. Often their very employment depends on making and presenting the right decisions to further up the chain, which in itself has become a daunting and quite political undertaking.

There is no doubt they are tasked with tremendous responsibility. When scouring the country for the pockets of "end user demand" in the SSL market, you meet very knowledgeable, professional and hard working facilities personnel that want to do good work for their employer. They have heard of all the great things that SSL can do for their facility and want to get in on the action. You can show them where it makes sense, and above all else, you should them where it does not. You can do a lighting audit and map out pilot areas and discuss forward motion. Then comes the part they aren't really trained for: You provide them with an investment grade ROI that confuses many of them. Those kinds of investments aren't 30% more for "commercial grade". They are 3 to 5 times more for a whole new approach. They get sticker shock... tunnel vision ensues... they zeroed in on price, and are told from up above that LED lighting is a good answer, so the only thing they can think to try is to find a lower priced "energy saving" alternative!

Sometimes, the alternative is an incumbent technology like fluorescent or HID, but very often it is a lower quality SSL product. They WILL find the SSL solution, but they will find it cheaper, and the market is willing to oblige by offering them a "junk grade" investment at 1/2 or 1/3 the price! While lower initial cost is a key factor that should always be part of the decision process, does that mean it is okay to make a fiscally irresponsible long term decision based on short term good intentions? I think not.

While "less initial cost" can translate into a "better initial business case", the long term financial implications are disturbing. Most of the industry insiders (OK, some... say, at least about 20%) can tell an end user that more than 80% of the SSL products available today may not survive or put out enough light to meet the ROI period that was presented. And while the incumbent lighting technologies make a great initial case, the ongoing costs for material, maintenance, recycling, additional HVAC, and energy cost just do not make sense when something better is available now. Unfortunately, that temporary ignorance prevails, and much of the revenue in the SSL general white lighting market is generated with low quality SSL product.

As one small saving grace, the junk SSL doesn't go into to the specification sales market, where the channels are long and fat. Very little solid state lighting of any kind goes in there, since it is difficult to even specify the SSL product for an opportunity that may or may not happen 9 months or a year from now... things move too fast in the technology; what is spec'd today is likely not even going to be available tomorrow. There is also little current success for SSL at the distributor level. After their normal margins of +/-15-35% are added, the business case to the end user dries up. ESCO's take large risks and the margins to match, but there is almost never the room for a reasonable ROI with LED-based lighting when an ESCO can to make +/-30-40% with incumbent T8's and T5's.

Much of existing sales channel in the lighting industry as well as the electronics and semiconductor industries are simply not structured at this point to accommodate quality LED lighting solutions for general lighting market. To get into this "sweet-spot", a leaner, more direct approach is required in order to see market penetration. You need to engage the key facilities people differently. You need to help them understand the language that the executive level decision makers are speaking (Rosetta Stone has not made DVD's for this yet, I checked!). The facilities-level personnel are an intelligent group, and if you approach them with the respect that they deserve they will be open to make the right decision.

So let's review: More direct approach needed in order to get keep the business case intact? -Certainly. Will the retrofit market be where the big wins happen for SSL in the next few years?-Absolutely. Will we need to approach facilities and maintenance personnel to make this happen? -Definitely. Will they be convinced that there is long term value in SSL over the incumbents?--Sometimes, but generally it is not one of the requirements of the position and unless we guide them into being the heroes and involve the executive team in the process, large volumes of quality SSL retrofits are unlikely to happen. Concerning SSL for general lighting, there are valid and vetted (some by CFO's of fortune 1000 companies) situations that exist today where Internal Rates of Return (IRR) have reached in the hundreds of percentage points. Those of us (manufacturers and their sales channel partners alike) on the quality side of the coin can consistently present SSL-based, application-specific ROI's around and under 3 years, and in some cases under 1 year (yes 1...) without even counting rebates or incentives.

Real ROI models now show improved cashflow (a great deal) and reduced expenses on many levels. These facts and figures are important somewhere around 100% of the time at the executive level; classic tools for which decisions are made and budgets are built. And given the economic climate of late, these returns are simply nonexistent in a bank, real estate, or passive investments. Quality, proven SSL technology with data to back up the claims should be swallowing the retrofit market whole right now, but much to the chagrin of manufacturers who made the right choices (and of course their investors) it is not. While the case for well-engineered SSL products is now clear, and in many cases a no-brainer, the incumbents are easier to sell with better margins for the existing sales channel. Or they stumble up on "cheap" SSL products that try to claim "the same business case, only better, with the lower price presenting seemingly easier decision for the facilities manger working on a tight budget. Although the trend is changing, the execs are typically not the ones making facility-wide lighting retrofit decisions, and reaching them will be key.

Execs say, "Sure, our company would love to see an IRR of 167%! Prove that it can happen, and the keys to our million square foot castle are yours!" Facilities folks say, "There is NO WAY I am paying $90 for a light bulb". Unless you can bring both parties together while making a case for quality SSL, the gap will remain and quality manufacturers will watch their forecasts keep pushing out quarter to quarter for the next few years.

Nikitas Nicolakis is President of New York-based Greenlight Initiative. He can be reached at nikita@lednyc.com or +1 718/784-4440.