Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Scala has just moved into its new offices in Malvern, Pennsylvania, not far from the airport and Philadelphia city centre, so when we talked last Friday, Scala CEO Tom Nix was still surrounded by unpacked boxes and sounding a bit scattered as he was running late and trying to conduct business on half-a-dozen fronts while also trying to deal with an interview.
The new office space is considerably larger than the previous offices in Exton, and Scala occupies 21,266 sq.ft in a 61,108 sq. ft. building. Nix promises photos when the boxes are unpacked, but in the meantime, we’ve learned that Scala Red is used liberally throughout and that there are no private offices.
“We were influenced by the open concept used at Bloomberg headquarters in New York, so there are no private offices for anyone, including me,” said Nix. “We’ve also a conference room where there are no chairs – purposely.
It’s a standing room conference room. If people are standing, then business gets done and it’s in-and-out quickly.”
In terms of digital displays, there are 23 screens in use and five more to be installed this week. Scala didn’t play favourites: the screens are of various sizes and from a mix of different suppliers. (No need to ask whose content management software powers them, though!) Content is by the Scala team globally.
A video wall is a couple of months in the future, with location still undecided.
“We have a town hall area in the centre, near the cafeteria and game room, and we’ve put in three espresso machines,” Nix said, adding jokingly, ”The key ingredient in our great software is caffeine, you know!”
There’s also an experience centre, and, of course, the R&D lab.
The experience centre showcases a little bit of everything that Scala does, especially in terms of the retail store: interactivity, lift-and-learn, and more, along with corporate communications and key performance indicators.
“We also have an Instagram account for customers, and employees can add information to that. There’s no curating.”
Q1 was good, with approximately 17% growth over the same period last year, Nix said. Europe was the standout, with 30% growth, mainly in the UK and southern Europe where the economy is recovering, he said. The level of interest of retailers wanting to connect screens with mobile is high, he said. About 45% of new customers are asking for this. A good 25% or more of existing customers are already making that an objective.
Among new customers are Shell stations in Brazil in association with Yamogu, and there are another four new customers’ projects, including one in the US, currently under way that can’t be revealed yet.
With Damon Crowhurst, EMEA vice-president, giving notice (moving to Samsung, although staying with Scala until the end of June), a search has been underway for his replacement, and Scala is down to a shortlist, with Crowhurst’s replacement expected to be announced later this month.
“We have a couple of other roles open as well,” says Nix. “We’ve already added eight new staff since the beginning of the year, and also currently have four university interns.”
He says that growth in the Mexico-Latin America-South America region has really picked up under Ximena Sula, who joined the company in 2013 from SignChannel Digital Signage. A Colombian native (now living in Boston), she is leading Scala’s LATAM and Caribbean efforts.
Scala will be bringing out a further enhanced version of Scala Enterprise – Scala Enterprise 11 – in June.
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