Staples to Shut 225 Stores, Seeks $500 Million in Cost Cuts

[jmowreader]

54. America has an MBA surplus

Your MBA is far more interested in not losing money than they are in making more of it.

War story follows: I used to work at Home Depot and I sold lumber, building materials and millwork. Millwork is a "specialty" department - a lot of what they sell there is custom-ordered product like windows and doors. Each specialty department at Home Depot has one or more "coordinators" - people who deal with vendors and installers. Our millwork coordinator was so slow we were losing customers.

One rainy day I was talking to the store manager about various things and the subject of our millwork coordinator came up. Said I, "you've got to get her some training or get us a new coordinator; it shouldn't take a whole shift to set up three installs when you've got twelve to do." The SM (all Home Depot store managers have MBAs - it's a hiring requirement, which makes sense because each HD store qualifies as a big business on its own merits) explained he liked our coordinator because she didn't make very many mistakes. Then he said something very strange: "which would you rather have, to make money or not lose money?" The dude was shocked as shit when I said "both would be fine. They're not mutually-exclusive constructs."

And this is the thing: today's MBA isn't willing to take risks and "long range planning" is three months. If you have a company that sells canned corn and you want to sell canned beans too, most people would tell you to buy a bean company rather than risking capital by inventing a new brand of beans.

I think this is what's really happening with Staples. COULD they turn the joint around? Absolutely. Start by ending the time honored practice of pretending to pay your staff. Well paid employees give better service. Then use regional preferences to help plan the store. If you sell red, green and white three-ring binders and the store in Pig's Knuckle, Arkansas, hasn't sold a green one since the store opened but the red ones sell faster than you can put them out, box the green ones up, send them to a store where they're popular, and fill the hole with red ones. Find a quality brand of technology product OfficeMax doesn't have and sell the fuck out of it; if you have price matching and the same inventory that means you're not in control of your pricing.

WILL they turn it around? Not highly likely. They will continue to be a clone of OfficeMax and they will wonder what the hell happened when OfficeMax stomps them into the ground.