I recently finished reading a fascinating book called "Inside the mind of a shopper" by Herb Sorensen. Sorensen is a leader in the field of following what a shopper actually does in a store, instead of relying on shopper comments. From that perspective, he makes a compelling case to change retail marketing strategies from a traditional “product-centric” perspective to a new “shopper-centric” focus. One great example of his research is a supermarket that puts milk at the back of the store, … [Read more...]
Your Employees, Your Customers and Your Products
March 18, 2009 By 12 Comments
I love this Jack Welch quote from a recent Financial times article on the future of Capitalism. "On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy...your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products." This is a key point. Shareholder value happens when the other things are done right. A business wins as a result of creating truly engaged customers. Customers who are raving fans of the business … [Read more...]
BuildDirect Speaks With Guy Parsons of Value Stream Solutions, Part 1
March 2, 2009 By 1 Comment
Every day the news is filled with more bad news regarding the economy. I think that in this type of environment, many companies are paralyzed by the fear of the unknown. My personal take is that there are always things that can be done. The focus needs to be on what you can control instead of what you cannot. One of the things that a company can control in a market like this is operational excellence, by removing waste in a system. Waste is easily defined as anything that happens … [Read more...]
Our Laminate Experiment
January 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment
We decided to put our laminate floors through some pretty significant, although unscientific, testing standards to see how they would measure. The reason..... Some people assume that the reason that our prices are so low is that the quality is inferior. We decided to install them outside as a bold and funny bet to prove that our products are of very high quality. Follow the daily adventure at www.watchuswreckafloor.com … [Read more...]
Welcome Robbie Banks!
January 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Robert Banks, my friend of over 20 years and co-founder of BuildDirect has recently joined the blogosphere. His role at BuildDirect has him travelling all over the world to develop really strong manufacturing relationships. He is a great story teller and has some very interesting experiences. Also a really funny guy!!!! Definitely worth following! Bookmark his blog at http://blog.builddirect.com/buildingmaterialsprocurement/ … [Read more...]
What next?
September 24, 2008 By Leave a Comment
I have been trying to stay away from entering the fray with my opinion on the financial markets. There is enough good commentary out there and anyone who has followed this blog for some time knows from previous posts that this has been coming. (The worst U.S. housing crisis since the great depression and Will Bush Veto Housing Bill ) With that being said I am going to throw my two bits in. With the housing and financial system in a state of collapse, and the US taxpayer on the hook, … [Read more...]
Some Manufacturing will come back to the United States – Top 3 Reasons
May 26, 2008 By 2 Comments
I read an interesting article that was sent to me by Rob Woods, our Director of Merchandising. The article is titled "An inside look at Logistics from Asia." Full text of the article is HERE. In it, the author who has lived in China for over a year suggests that America will never get any of the manufacturing jobs back from Asia because the labor is too cheap in China. He goes on to suggest that once China figures out how to open up West China, where there is an abundance of even cheaper … [Read more...]
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