INFORMATION YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW
Through the years Wolverine World Wide has continued to add new Footwear Brands to their company’s portfolio. They have also been making several changes within their Retail Division. There have been several changes that have taken place within the company that the general public does not know about and should know, before it's too late.
RETAIL DIVISION INFORMATION
In 2009 it was announced that a new Retail President would be brought in to operate and make changes to the Hush Puppies Retail Division. The search for a new retail president was filled with the appointment of Christopher E. Hufnagel (chris.hufnagel@wwwinc.com).
Since the addition of Mr. Hufnagel as President of Retail, the retail division has went from a growing business with individual stores setting record profits to individual stores being remolded and losing money. These losses have not been questioned by Blake Krueger (blake.krueger@wwwinc.com) (CEO/Chairman) or Jim Zwiers (jim.zwiers@wwwinc.com) (Sr. Vice President), as additional stores have been closed, remolded and new locations added.
RETAIL FACTS
Here are just three examples of reasons that the retail stores are losing money and how the poor judgment of Christopher E. Hufnagel as the Retail President are leading to a much larger downfall than the company knows about or will admit too.
- Loss of Columbia(R) outerwear at the Rockford Depot Outlets Stores.
- Loss of The North Face(R) outerwear at the Track 'N Trail Stores.
- The "NEW" retail motto "Sell only Company Products in their Retail Stores."
LACK OF RESEARCH LEADS TO NEW RETAIL PRESIDENT
The decision to hire Christopher E. Hufnagel, as Retail President was the brain fart of Jim Zwiers (Sr. Vice President) and the in ability of Blake Krueger (CEO/Chairman) to do any fact-finding on the past poor decisions that Mr. Hufnagel has made. The warning bells should have been blaring with this announcement. An article posted on the website SOCIALITE dated January 7, 2007 deals with the fact that well employed as VP of Gap Brand Stores; Christopher Hufnagel was in the process of being shit canned due to his poor job performance and inability to lead Gap into competitive growth. Mr. Hufnagel had already seen the fact that his firing was inevitable and had lined himself up with a downgraded position at "Under Amour."
A RETAIL PRESIDENT WHO IS INCAPABLE
Almost from the start Hufnagel began to start a demise of the Retail Division. As his poor past leadership had shown that being given the role of leader of a company Hufnagel's inability to lead due to poor business knowledge started showing. First line of business was to implement an environment that things were to be done his way and that those who worked in the Retail Division would give the "YES SIR" response or be let go from the company. From the start upper management should have understood this as his inability to lead and a power trip of trying to prove he is always right and not be challenged when he is wrong. Hufnagel's second order of business was to revamp the "Black Out Dates" that employees in the retail stores follow to have proper store coverage during peak selling times. Hufnagel's idea was to block the complete months of November and December as times that those in the retail management could not have time off. He further went as far as setting the schedule that any holiday that was on the US calendar would have store management working those holidays and the days leading up to and after, while Mr. Hufnagel himself was on vacation with his family enjoying these holidays. The response was over whelming negative and bad for business. Had the leader himself not rub it into the faces of the working class by being on vacation and not working during these dates, things may not have been so bad.
Not only had the implementing of the above been so misguided, but he also put into motion to eradicate top selling non-company products from the retail stores. This has to be seen as one of the most unexplainable dumb ass decisions that anyone could have done. Brands such as Columbia(R), The North Face(R) and Patagonia(R) Apparel were now considered as non-important to the retail business, when in fact these brands helped make the retail division successful for so many years. This would lead to multi-millions of dollars in non company product that was being dropped in favor of Merrell(R) Brand Apparel that had yet or now to prove itself as a product that people would want to buy.
The loss of business was of huge importance to stores who for many years posted profit after profit. The solution was to add new locations, close locations and remodel locations to fit this vision. Store closings were done in areas that could not survive with these losses and the remolded locations were done in an effort to try in force company brands on the retail consumers who visited the retail stores. Hufnagel knew that by opening up new locations he could show money coming into the retail division without having to answer to the mounting losses that were inevitable at locations that had been profitable in previous years. During this time frame several promotions/firings had to be implemented in order to have his team follow his lead without questioning his decisions. He decided to bring in people who had worked for him in the past and to promote those from within that did not have a strong business sense to see what was taking place.
Hufnagel quickly promoted Sean Cook (sean.cook@wwwinc.com) (Regional Manager) Brendan Greene (brendan.greene@wwwinc.com) (Operations Manager), Heather Dietrichson (heather.dietrichson@wwwinc.com) (Director Retail Presentation) and Roy Conley (roy.conley@wwwinc.com) (Lead District Manager) to ensure his "YES MEN/WOMAN" were on board. With three individuals being past store managers (the yes men) and at best weak ones at that, he had the foundation laid to follow through with his poor insight in retail business without anyone questioning his decision making. Almost from the start the losses mounted and with having put three past store managers with poor performance records in charge of the stores he could now get rid of store managers who had been protesting to WWW employees the dumb ass decisions and losses that their stores were now dealing with.
At two of the best performing Track 'N Trail Stores the losses mounted. The solution was to remodel The Bridgewater NJ Store into a Merrell(R) only store with revenue loss not counting the remodel of over a half million dollars in annual sales. At the Woodland Mall Track 'N Trail Store the management team set out a path to replace the most successful store manager in company history with one who would not question retail losses nor raise issues with WWW employees or management as to why they were going backwards. Another practice was to close or remodel a store that had a successful store manager and then not keep them in an effort to quell efforts of being challenged for making decisions that negatively affected business.
WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR WWW RETAIL
As long as the Retail Division at Wolverine World Wide is left up to Christopher Hufnagel and his team of Sean Cook, Brendan Greene, Heather Dietrichson and Roy Conley the losses and the demise of a once prospering retail network will be a thing of the past. The management team will continue to purge top brands like Ugg Australia(R), Teva(R) and others until there is so much revenue loss that Wolverine World Wide is forced to shit can Hufnagel (just like Gap was going to do) and his team. Let's hope it's not too late for them to salvage their Retail Business by letting this team make dumb ass decisions for too much longer.
