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traditional geographic footprint. If we
expanded heavily into the West, with the
cost of transportation, we might need to
consider adding a fourth DC, but we
don’t see that in the near future.
average store size is around 18,000
square feet, so we are pretty shallow in
terms of depth of our SKUs. As a result,
we have to be very sensitive to how
quickly we can replenish to avoid out-of-stocks. Trying to marry up the need to
keep inventory in the store but do it cost
effectively in so many widely scattered
locations is a major challenge.
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QSounds like you’re well positioned to provide next-day service from
the DCs to stores?
AWell, we could if we wanted to, but we’re not doing that right now
because of volume and distance. After the
2008 economic slump, we began talking
with our dedicated outbound carrier,
Velocity Express, about reducing delivery
frequencies. What we decided was that
some of the stores were small enough that
they didn’t really need three cartons delivered every day, and we both
could save some money by
moving them to a designat-ed-delivery-day system. So,
we took a segment of the
stores and put them on a
Tuesday-Thursday or a
Monday-Wednesday-Friday
delivery schedule, all based
on volume and business.
It was a win-win for both
the carrier and for us. The stores had no
objection—they didn’t necessarily enjoy
going to the back door every day to
receive two or three cartons.
That’s not to say this will be a permanent
arrangement, however. The grand plan,
since we have a dedicated delivery partner,
is that as it adds other clients in these areas
and finds itself going to a location anyway
for some other client, we will probably go
back to more frequent deliveries.
QCould you talk a bit about your specific role? For instance, what do
you do when you come to work each day?
AMost of my time is spent communi- cating with our own merchants,
communicating with vendors, communicating with carriers, and trying to develop
an environment that is conducive to the
maximizing of productivity and efficiency within the
organization.
What makes that possible
is that I have a very good
team. They are solid. They
are experienced. They are
great leaders. That has
allowed me to focus my
efforts on things outside the
four walls. They are running what goes on inside those walls.
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QTell us a little bit about the logis- tics operation’s role in supporting
Stage’s broader corporate success.
AWell, as I mentioned, we are a growth company, so our primary
role is to make sure that we are never the
reason they can’t continue down that
path—that I have sufficient capacity and
have the mechanisms in place to support
whatever strategy they decide to pursue.
Another of our main responsibilities
has to do with balancing stock levels and
transportation costs. We operate literally
hundreds of stores in rural areas and the
QSo you’re a proponent of hiring ood people and getting out of
their way?
AAbsolutely. Often when I speak, I open with, “I love my job.” The reason I love my job so much is I get to do
my job. So many of my peers appear
overworked and over-tasked. When you
talk to them for just a little while, you
find out that the reason is that they’re
not only doing their own jobs, they’re
also attempting to do their people’s jobs.
QAssume for a moment that you’ve stepped into a new job and discovered some pretty substantial personnel
problems within the logistics operation.
How would you go about orchestrating
change?
AI think you do it one step at a time. You have to spend time with each of
the individuals to try to get to the root of
the problem and then go attack those
issues.
