You’re all familiar with North Face, Lee, Wrangler, Timberland, JanSport, right? Mr. Steve Rendle, CEO of the multi-billion dollar VF Corporation, vfc.com, was a keynote speaker during a recent Ethical Corporation Business Sustainability Summit, reutersevents.com/events/rbs-usa. That’s where Jack and I had the pleasure of hearing and connecting with his message.
Mr. Rendle talked about sustainability and the environment as key elements of each company’s unique “Purpose.” In keeping with the topic for this three-day event, he emphasized that each of these ingredients is now critical for business growth in the 21st century. He noted that merely talking about the subjects is not enough. His point was that to bring a company’s Purpose to fruition, its employees have to believe in the “power of and.”
What is the “power of and?” It is the opposite of “…but that will never work here.”
Our thanks go out to Petr Pavelcek (Czech Republic) and Herman Goosens (Belgium) for proving the “powers of and” in their respective distribution centers. They discovered that savings on tape alone provided a payback on their box fastener purchases in 6-7 months. And, they discovered that their 90,000 Box Latches™, 3,000 Corner Clip and Stacks and 40,000 anchors have saved far more money for them by reducing task times. That means their true payback period on their investment in our box closure products was realized in as little as 2-3 months. And, they have all these devices to use for years to come.
So… as Steve Rendle alluded, the efforts put forth by two key employees way down the supply chain who said “and look what we can do with this innovation,” has fulfilled VF’s Purpose. Even better, that “and” benefited VFs People and our Planet as they helped produced Profits. For a case report on VF, click boxlatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/NVC-VF-Case-Study-Published-in-the-Netherlands.pdf