“It’s Always About the People”, says PCH’s Liam Casey [Video]

PCH founder and CEO Liam Casey is having a busy week in Dublin. He’s attending Web Summit, of course – he says that Silicon Valley was full of talk about that event last week. But before the Summit, PCH was involved with running the three-day Design and Hardware Hackathon at DCU Innovation Campus over the weekend. That’s where he spoke to Technology.ie.

“Ultimately it’s always about the people”, says Liam, as he explains why they’re running their second DCU Hackathon in just 6 weeks. After 18 years developing extraordinary expertise in manufacturing and supply chain, the company has subtly rebranded this week from PCH International to PCH. The new brand reflects the evolution of PCH, its expanded business practices to encompass product design and development, as well as manufacturing, supply chain, distribution and e-commerce, and its new relationship with customers.

Named after California’s famed Pacific Coast Highway, PCH was founded by Liam Casey and began as a manufacturing and supply chain management company working with Fortune 500s. In the years since, it has expanded well beyond those bounds, employing nearly 2800 people worldwide, and having revenues over $1 billion a year. In recent years, PCH has made a targeted move into product design engineering and development, and its PCH Access division began working with startups, such as LittleBits and Blaze, to help them make and scale their products.

In 2012, PCH acquired Lime Lab, now PCH Lime Lab, which offers product design engineering. Also in 2012, PCH acquired TNS, a product distribution business. PCH launched its hardware incubator, Highway1, which helps entrepreneurs bring their product from concept to market in 2013, and has been responsible for such startups as: Cue, Drop, Ringly and Navdy. This year, PCH acquired ShopLocket the e-commerce platform for startups.

“We work with designers and entrepreneurs who come to us with their product ideas, and we help them transform these concepts into the next generation of consumer hardware products,” said Liam Casey.

“For us, if it can be imagined by our customers, then we can make it. We love solving complex problems, and working with customers who are passionate about brand, passionate about design and passionate about the consumer experience,” continued Liam. “Although there is a lot of complexity to what we do, we wanted to have a simple message that conveys our essence. The time was right to make this change now, and the new brand message, ‘we make’ reflects who we are and what we do.”

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