Mail-ordering fruits was started by a few companies in the US market, among them being Harry & David Holdings. This American company was established in 1910 with the purchase of a 240-acre-wide pear orchard. Owned by Wasserstein & Company, Harry & David had its high moments but suffered from years of down moments until Steve Heyer CEO took over.
Steve J Heyer assumed leadership of the orchard and did some pruning, weeding and fertilizing. Harry & David was at that time looking at negative profits, suffering terribly from the recession. To answer the issue, the new chief of the company did away with several of the other executives, hiring in their stead more managers for sales.
Heyer thus pruned the higher branches of all those unnecessary yet resource-sucking shoots, keeping and rewarding only those execs who actually did their jobs. The best part about the decision was the result: tens of millions in savings without having to resort to wage cuts. This is important in a time such as this, where so many wage cuts have been made.
“We have duplications and multiple systems that were very expensive,” the CEO explained. One of the group's deficiencies was in the willingness to consider alterations to the old way of doing things. Heyer, however, happens to have no fears of change.
When he was still working for Coca Cola, he was already talking about the importance of innovation. Heyer emphasized the importance of always coming up with new approaches to meeting market demands, in order to acknowledge that the market itself was always changing. Heyer thought that the coming years would see consumers demanding more and more customization.
New techniques had to be put forward to address new circumstances, in Heyer's opinion. When he took on the role of the chief executive officer for Starwood, Heyer demonstrated how to change approaches radically. In a stroke of genius, he directed Starwood's marketing departments to repackage the product, stressing that it was not so much a room that was being sold but rather the possibility of creating memorable experiences.
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. In the early 1990s, Heyer was also acting chief of an advertising firm.
The organizational problems at Harry & David, for Heyer, were compounded by failures to advertise and find representation with the ASI. The lack of advertisement was hurting the company. It was crucial to be link to the Advertising Specialty Institute.
The company's latest chief executive officer understood from where the problems came. Heyer found that marketing and merchandising efforts from the business were simply not in accord. The inability to support new ways of thinking was what was killing the business.
Today, Harry and David is picking up the scattered pieces and putting them together in beautiful harmony. It has come out of the rut in which it was stuck, revamping both image and systems. Steve Heyer CEO notes that the company is now a growing, healthy organism again that should recover from its old issues.
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