Today’s visit to Glen Raven, a fabric manufacturing and marketing company, proved to be very informational. The company was originally founded in 1880 by John Quinton Gant and is currently headed by his grandson, Allen Erwin Gant Jr. It is really admirable that the company remains owned and managed by Gant’s descendants. Plus, Glen Raven was one of the first mills in the south to dye fabrics. In the 1960s, Glen Raven introduced its Sunbrella brand of performance fabrics, which includes fabric for awnings, furniture, marine applications, and convertible tops. This brand has been extremely successful for nearly 50 years.
Striving for success, Glen Raven has a clear vision: “Let Endless Possibilites Begin”. Its mission is to enhance life for global customers with the world’s most innovative fabric-based, market-driven solutions. Since Glen Raven is a family business, it values engaged associates who create fulfilling professional experiences through enthusiasm, focus, teamwork, diversity, creativity, innovation and a shared vision. The company wants employees who embrace change in the evolving technological, social and market forces shaping our world, and pursue the opportunities they produce. Unsurprisingly, the company wants its employees to deliver profitable growth. In doing so, the goal is to deliver products and services marked by excellence in quality and to conduct to the highest standards of ethics, safety, environmental protection, lawfulness, and respect. As a result, long-term value and customer satisfaction is almost guaranteed.
Glen Raven’s customers are typically automobile companies, the military, sailing companies, mining, and people interested in furniture and awnings. During the presentation, it was stated that Glen Raven’s products are seen in 60% of automobiles. The two companies that do not use Glen Raven’s services are Kia and Hyundai. Glen Raven’s customers value materials with a long life duration, strength, and color-hold. During the tour today, employees explained how they do tests on the fabric to determine how much weight it can hold before tearing or breaking completely. Plus, the employees told how the color team works hard to ensure that the coloring of the fabric of a seatbelt (for example) will appear to the eye as the same color of the fabric on the interior of the car after many years of different sun exposure. After today’s visit, it is very clear that Glen Raven works hard to provide customers with valuable products, and its result is just that. Many companies continue to use Glen Raven’s products and the company is recognized as the premier leader in high-performance fabric-based solutions. The companies plan is to continue to provide textiles for automobiles, the military, sailing, mining, furniture, and awnings. The goal is for Glen Raven to expand and grow annually.
Overall, I really admired the fact that some of the employees devoted so much time into market research and surveying potential customers to determine who they were and what they wanted from the company. Those at Glen Raven appear to be very smart when it comes to knowing the industry and the information needed to succeed and surpass possible competitors. This intelligence is also demonstrated by the story of how the company used to produce sport’s jerseys but soon realized that apparel would not be profitable due to price competition in China. The company changed overnight and began their endless possibilities.
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