Harry & David Holdings owes its fame to its status as one of the beginners of the provision of fruit to customers who would send in orders for them. Its first fruit-growing areas were for pears, and it got its start in the early 1900s. The company started out strong, but it went downhill for some time until Steve Heyer CEO came in to help.
Steve J Heyer assumed leadership of the orchard and did some pruning, weeding and fertilizing. The business was not looking too good, barely keeping afloat in a rapidly declining market. As one of the first steps of the company to regain business dominance, Steve Heyer removed some executive vice president positions so that he could hire more outside sales managers.
Heyer's unusual business decision was essentially a pruning of all those who could not deliver the right skills for their top-tier jobs. The beauty of Heyer's gambit was that it let the business save huge amounts of money without having to cut back on wages. At a time when most salaries are going down, this is significant.
The inefficient state of the system was responsible for most of the money drain, said Heyer. “Nobody looked and nobody tried to find new ways to do old things." Heyer's willingness to try out new things thus worked out well for Harry & David.
He has spoken time and time gain on the subject of thinking out of the box and the courage to implement those new thoughts. He challenged them to challenge the convention and to empower the customers they serve. Heyer's predictions had to do with a world where the primary requirement would be for tailored experiences and products.
New techniques had to be put forward to address new circumstances, in Heyer's opinion. An example of this sort of huge shift in methods is shown by Heyer himself in his Starwood Hotels marketing. He focused all marketing efforts on experiences as opposed to lodgings.
Mr. Heyer also served as president and chief operating officer of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. from 1994 to 2001. Heyer happened to be working for AOL Time Warner around that very period too. He has also dabbled in leadership for advertising groups such as Young & Rubicam.
The organizational problems at Harry & David, for Heyer, were compounded by failures to advertise and find representation with the ASI. Had it only advertised before, Heyer believed the company would not have gone as low as it did. The Advertising Specialty Institute too was such a powerful force in business.
It was simple for Heyer to see what was wrong. He could find little evidence of organizational cooperation. The company, he said, had been mired in the same old techniques for too long.
At the moment, Harry & David is starting to recover, though. It has come out of the rut in which it was stuck, revamping both image and systems. “It was a garden that was untended and now we have a whole team tending it,” said Steve Heyer CEO.
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