Montmagny, Quebec, Canada—A quarter-century ago, Mercier Wood Flooring founder Marcel Mercier had an idea. Working at home, he devised something nobody in the industry had ever seen before and, 25 years later, his company continues to do the same. “We like to say that our company invented prefinished hardwood flooring,” said Roger Guay, Mercier’s director of sales. “Our founder basically invented the product out of the shed in his backyard. We basically grew from there. Innovation has been the cornerstone of our growth over the past 25 years.”

If necessity is truly the mother of invention, Mercier knew what he had to do. The Mercier family wanted to install wood flooring in their home. However, installing unfinished boards that had to be sanded and then varnished in the home would have been a huge amount of trouble and work. The thought of dust, toxic vapors, and being forced to move out during the process and then to completely clean the house afterwards made the whole project a bad idea.

Different Approach Therefore, why not finish the boards before installing them in the home? Marcel Mercier’s innovation led, ultimately, to factory-finished flooring. He carried out preliminary tests in his furniture shop. The first samples immediately grabbed the interest of customers, who asked how soon the product was going to be available. Mercier decided to push his research further.

A cabinetmaker for over 25 years, he was already well versed in wood working and finishing. He quickly realized that the methods and varnishes used in cabinetmaking were not totally suitable for flooring. The varnishes took too long to dry and harden. With the help of industrial finish manufacturers, Mercier decided to employ more recent technology to make the finish dry instantly. Ultraviolet-cured urethane was the answer.

With his creative ingenuity, Mercier decided to push forward in the development of heretofore-non-existent production equipment. His new product was then subjected to a variety of experiments and improvements. Factory Finished Focus Mercier decided to focus strictly on the development and marketing of factory-finished flooring. He founded Les Planchers Mercier in 1980 and be gan producing and marketing his new concept.

The first task of the family-owned company was to showcase the indisputable advantage of his product: the beauty of wood flooring without enduring the inconveniences of finishing in the home. Consumer interest was immediate. The company grew quickly and expanded, with the help of its significant retail network—coverage of Canada and a significant part of the United States.

To change innovation into tradition, Mercier worked closely in partnership, in the setting up of research protocols in order to offer the best protection in the industry for the prefinished wood boards. This hard work led, at the end of the last century, to the creation of Ceramilust finish, another revolution at the time. Always customer-focused and targeting nothing less than excellence, Mercier worked on development and eventually mastering technological processes designed to perform, grow, innovate and more.

Having just celebrated its 25th anniversary this past fall, Mercier, which has more than 200 employees at its Montmagny and Drummondville facilities, takes pride in its accomplishments, much which have to do with technology and the way it does business. “At this point, we are the only manufacturer in Quebec that is totally vertically integrated with a fully dedicated saw mill,” said Guay. “We are buying the logs and converting them to prefinished wood flooring strips.

Other manufacturers either buy the lumber and then transform or finish it, we buy the logs. As a matter of fact, we completed the acquisition of our saw mill this year. “We had been a partner with the mill for three years but we now own the facility,” he explained. “It is advantageous for us from two standpoints: The most important thing is, to have better control of our supply.

Just as important, better control over quality because we control the process all the way down from the log to the finished product, which is not something everybody can brag about.” It is that constantly thinking about what it can do to differentiate itself from others that has kept Mercier on a steady growth path ever since its inception a generation ago.

“We’ve been pretty innovative through the years,” said Guay, “such as with the introduction of our Mercier Generations finish back in 2003, which was the first product that included a sun shield, antimicrobial as well as an ultra-durable concept. Even today our finish is the most durable on the market. Our Taber test is twice our closest competitor’s Taber test.

“Speaking of innovation today,” he stated, “our goal is to continue in the tradition of innovation this company has set for itself over the past 25 years. We see that as the key to survival. When you look at the context of manufacturing from a global perspective, if you look at the next 10, 15, 25 years, those companies that will not be able to innovate will basically disappear. And you will see many of those. We’re pretty sensitive about that and we understand what we need to do. We have some pretty extensive plans in terms of product development and research, and we know where we are going from an innovation standpoint.”

Guay sees technology playing out in two main themes for Mercier. “If you look at the role of technology, it is two-fold. Economically, for sure, if you want to compete against the Chinese [companies] with their low labor costs, you’ve got to have good technology built in your manufacturing process, but it also comes with the innovation. There is a way to bring technology to speed up the flow of innovation, so we look at it from those two standpoints.”

While Mercier has come a long way in its 25 years, Guay acknowledges the company still has a ways to go to before it overcomes the obstacles to achieve its goals. “There is no doubt in our mind that building a strong brand is the right path to take. “We’ve a solid reputation in the trade but, certainly, we need to do a lot more work with the consumer—who ultimately buys our product,” he added. “That is essentially the direction we’re taking, we are going to strengthen and leverage our brand going forward to achieve our business growth objectives.

“In order to do this,” he explained, “we have got to build a solid network around us, that’s one of the things we are working on right now. We will continue to expand our network both in North America and the rest of the world. It comes with very good, sound marketing tactics, advertising being one of them, but I believe from a marketing standpoint, with the opportunities in this business, for us to do a little better, we intend to become better marketers in the hardwood flooring business.”

Guay noted, “We are happy with where we are but we are not satisfied. We have higher goals and higher expectations for our team in terms of what we can deliver and what we will deliver in the future. We are quite pleased with our progress over the past 25 years, but certainly our goal is not to remain status quo for the next 25. There is only one way to go in life and it applies to this company as well. When you go up, you are in a safe place, if you stall, then you fall.”

Of the biggest obstacles the company has had to face in recent years, Guay noted, the Asian influence is the most pressing. “The manufacturing powerhouse overseas is one of the major challenges that the North American industry, as a whole, has to face, and obviously, on a smaller scale, a company like Mercier Wood Flooring has to face. We believe differentiation is the key here. We feel our product has a major differentiating factor with the Generations finish.

“It puts us in a very different place than the Chinese mills are,” he said. “They produce a mass, low-end type of product, while we manufacture a high-quality product with a very different finish on it that they, quite frankly, can’t replicate. That is the key to our survival so far. That’s why some other companies are struggling so much because they have nothing different to offer. Business Philosophy Guay described Mercier’s business philosophy as a simple yet complicated process.

“What you need to do is, understand what you do best, what you are good at, and concentrate on it. Make sure you market it in a way that it is acceptable and appealing to the end user. “That sounds very simple but it’s still very complicated to do for many smaller companies like ours,” he said. “If you can’t execute your fundamentals, there is no point in having a fancy plan because you are going to mess up from the get-go. “As far as tomorrow goes,” he concluded, “understanding the market and focusing on properly delivering what it wants will be the key to our success in the future.” —Louis Iannaco