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Container Store Visionary Shares Details of Successful Employee-Centric Operation
Show Education Sessions Also Cover Staying Relevant to Consumers in Changing Times; Color Trends and Designers’ Choices
ROSEMONT, ILL. (January 2010) – While many companies have focused on shareholders and their desire to maximize profits, The Container Store has found success through another door – employees.
CEO and Chairman Kip Tindell, who has been at the helm of The Container Store since it first opened in 1978, will share his vision of a unique corporate culture during the annual Keynote Address at the 2010 International Home + Housewares Show. His talk begins at noon on Sunday, March 14 in South Building, Room S100/Grand Ballroom. Tindell will stress how his company’s intense commitment to employees has been vital to its continued success in tough times.
Tindell’s presentation is one of four educational sessions offered at the Show. Others include an emerging trends presentation by Tom Mirabile of Lifetime Brands and Leatrice Eiseman’s annual color trends sessions. All seminars will be held in the South Building, Room S100/Grand Ballroom.
The Value of an Employee-First Culture During Tough Times
With 2009 fiscal year sales projected to exceed a half-billion dollars, The Container Store, the originators of the storage and organization category in retailing, remain the leaders in their niche. Retail analysts have cited the company’s unwavering devotion to its original concept –selling products that store and organize other products - as a key to its success.
For Tindell, the core of that winning formula has been an equal devotion to employees, empowering them to use their own intuition and creativity to solve problems as opposed to the proverbial procedural manual. The Container Store, which now has 47 stores across the U.S. and a thriving Web-based business, has expanded over time by first taking care of its employees, which has resulted in fierce loyalty that nurtures the bottom line shareholders hold dear.
That employee-centric focus has propelled The Container Store to the top of Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” for 10 consecutive years. Along with his wife, Sharon, and Chairman Emeritus Garrett Boone, Tindell was inducted into the Retailing Hall of Fame in 2006.
“If you take care of employees, they’ll take care of the customers – and that will take care of your shareholders,” Tindell said in an interview with Fortune. “To myopically focus on shareholders is wrong. So we invest heavily in our employees… Someone made me a bumper sticker that reads GOT Wake? And I keep it with me all the time. I have this theory that your wake, just like a boat’s, is much bigger than you realize. Everything you do – and what you don’t do – impacts the people around you more than you think.”
The Who, What, When, Where and How of Today’s Consumer
We’ve all heard the statistic cited over and over again during a down economy: consumer spending makes up about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. That’s a huge chunk of the economic pie, which means that consumer product manufacturers had better know what John and Mary Doe want and need.
Tom Mirabile, senior vice president for Global Trend & Design at Lifetime Brands, will discuss the top trends for 2011 in his seminar “Staying Relevant to a Changing Consumer,” at 7:30 a.m. on Monday, March 15.
Mirabile has held senior merchant and product development positions with a host of retailers including the Neiman Marcus Group, Horchow and Bloomingdales. In his current position at Lifetime Brands, he provides creative direction for a huge line of respected brands in the housewares and tabletop industries.
His presentation will focus on the proverbial “Five W’s:
- Who are today’s most important housewares consumers and how can you attract them and form lasting relationships?
- What is the new definition of value for today’s consumers?
- When will consumers start spending again, and what will they be spending on?
- Where are the most important consumer lifestyle shifts and how can they be leveraged to create opportunities in the aisles?
- Why is newness and innovation more important than before the recession?
During his presentation, Mirabile also will direct questions to a panel of expert industry trend forecasters, who will share opinions and predictions for 2011.
In an interview with Reuters at the 2009 International Home + Housewares Show, Mirabile noted that a trend toward home cooking was a “huge opportunity for housewares” after years of relying on takeout and housecleaning services to get domestic tasks done. “People are spending more time at home,” he said. “We have to help them finds ways to make that experience interesting.”
Lee Eiseman Means Color Trends in Any Language
Each year at the Show, IHA’s color expert Leatrice (Lee) Eiseman opens her box of new trends and reveals them to a waiting audience. This year, the guru of color will again talk about color and design trends in noontime seminars on Monday and Tuesday, March 15 and 16.
On Monday, Eiseman, who is the executive director of the Pantone Institute, will present “Color Trends: The Catalysts that Create Change,” which will include the much anticipated debut of Pantone’s Inc.’s forecasted palettes for 2011. On Tuesday, she will share an inside glimpse into some of the specific Pantone colors that designers in fashion and home furnishings are purchasing now in the seminar “Designers’ Choice: What Colors Are They Buying?”
In today’s complex and challenging marketplace, color plays a huge role in attracting and engaging the consumer’s eye, Eiseman says. “Color is, in fact, the catalyst that can spark the sale, define the space and create the magic and the mood. Choices are as varied as lifestyles, each reflecting a specific point of view and comfort level,” she explains
With Eiseman at the color wheel, no one will be left behind. Check out the Pantone color palettes for 2011 including: Cottage Industry, Simply Stated, Style and Substance, Clarity, Fragments, Archetypes, Focal Points, Mixed Media and Wit and Whimsy.
For more information on the Show and the educational seminars, please visit www.housewares.org
