Nortek CEO Offers His Take on COVID-19’s Effects on 2020 – 2021

Jason Knott of CE Pro sat down with Chris Larocca, President/CEO of Nortek. The interview offers some insight for those of us in the security, smart home and IoT space.

Because of their manufacturing operations in China, Larocca had some early indications of a potential market disruption due to COVID-19.

“A lot of our employees were quarantined; they were not allowed to leave their apartments or their homes. At the time, my concern was what it was going to do to the supply chain domestically, with China being shut down the better part of February. I was not really thinking at the time that the virus itself would have such an impact domestically. Like a lot of other companies, we shut down almost all of our facilities. I think out of our 13 facilities, we shut down 11 of them,” he says.

Business bottomed out for Nortek during the second week of April 2020. However, since that time, Nortek has experienced a steady bounceback.

“Very surprisingly, even through today, we have seen a very steady increase from that second week in April all the way to now, this first week in October, of the market recovering. And, I’d say we’re at or above pre-COVID levels now, as far as market activity,” he notes.

When asked about his outlook for 2021, he said, “I would say at this point, short of anything materially coming out, whether it’s the election or something that’s in the pan-global economic arena, we’re going into 2021 with a lot of strength and a lot of tailwind. So, I’d say at this point, short of anything that’s unforeseeable, we’re anticipating 2021 to be a very strong year.”

Larocca believes that the recent global unrest has led people to think more seriously about their home security capabilities.

“A residential security system is not just a home automation system, in a lot of cases you’re installing a smart system that’s providing some additional benefits to that user that you may not have had one or two years ago.  The social unrest that’s out there has a lot of people that want to protect the homeland. They want to protect our house and their families and that’s really where a lot of the integrators are starting to shift their time,” says Larocca.

We recommend listening to the full interview. Well done Jason and Chris!