A new Cooler Master
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A decision to significantly alter the strategy of an already thriving company is a brave one. If tried and tested methods for market success are already in place, and working smoothly, why make any changes? We pondered such a question as Cooler Master, a well established brand in the PC hardware market, unveiled its new company branding strategy and a plethora of new products spearheaded by the slogan, "Make It Yours", at an event in Eindhoven.
As the slogan implies Cooler Master's new strategy is about an all-out focus on user-customisability, modularity and tweakability. The established company wants to avoid releasing static products and instead produce dynamic and upgradeable products that can change in harmony with shifting market trends and changing user requirements.
HEXUS started the event with a tour of the company's new Eindhoven offices that were finished last year as Cooler Master transitioned from its former offices in Venlo, also in the Netherlands. The new offices were custom built not only to reinvigorate the company's work environment but also to account for Cooler Master's need for more space and staff as a result of growth in the European market.
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Alongside the more traditional rooms, such as the power supply and CPU cooler testing labs, Cooler Master also has dedicated gaming rooms where staff can take a break from the desk routine. As a company targeting a gaming audience Cooler Master regularly hosts gaming events and also uses the room to test out its own gaming products.
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Moving into the warehouse segment of the new Cooler Master offices revealed an entire room built from boxes of already-sold MasterCase 5 stock. This 3,000 square metre warehouse area is used by the company to handle RMAs, store spare parts for legacy products and bring in new buffer product stock for the European market.
Interestingly, Cooler Master reckons that a high percentage of customer PSU returns are often not faulty. It does, however, still honour the RMAs and replacements in the interest of maintaining a good relationship with customers. In terms of stock Cooler Master claims its new warehouse accounts for 15 per cent of stock that arrives in Europe each month, that's around 8-10 40 foot containers per month.
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There was also an intriguing memento of the company's history and trajectory with an entire corridor dedicated to storing one working example of every Cooler Master product ever made including cases, coolers, power supplies and gaming peripherals. Not only does such a collection serve as an interesting archive it is also used by the customer services division to address any issues that require staff to refresh their memory of a specific product.
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