BenSerotta
06-09-2009, 06:49 PM
Hold on to your rumor mill please! :)
What happened to the store and other musings of our destiny… A report from the top…..
It’s been brought to my attention that there’s a lot of concerned chatter on the forum at the moment regarding the health of the company so I thought I’d better take a few minutes to address those concerns.
First of all, we’re quite OK, we really are….at the same I have to admit we’re not doing a great job at everything and that really bothers me. The bikes are fantastic as always. Sales, considering the economy, are much improved from winter levels (well above survival levels, thank you) and the new AE model is finally shipping.
We have a number of areas in which I feel we have been underperforming and they are related to web/electronic based features and services and communication. Having identified these and then overlaying a conservative approach to short term (0-8 months) business (as every intelligent organization is doing now) and I could only draw the following conclusion:
Stop attempting to do things that we can not perform at a high level without significant investments in resources and to focus on the "core business" in which we are better than anyone else- from fit to finish, building and delivering the best bicycles through our highly qualified dealerships.
If I am to be honest with myself, and you, we have always done a lousy job at managing soft goods and direct sales (over the internet). From my perspective, we’ve frustrated people more often than not with poor service, product availability or both. We’ve had great product (from time to time) but failed miserably at providing the right infrastructure and support necessary to do a great job.
Investing in frame materials, R&D and machinery has always trumped everything else. That’s what you do when you lead your category in quality and innovation. None of our direct competitors comes close. And now, as the world tries to right the erratic economy, is not the time for us to invest the resources in this important yet non-mission critical aspect of business. So until we can match that performance standard in accessories we’ve suspended the on-line store and the garage. For now, we’re disappointed as you may be…. but I can assure you, before too long we’ll have plenty of cool Serotta accessories and it will be a pleasant experience to purchase them.
As a temporary measure, Castelli has offered to provide fulfillment duties on Owner’s Club jerseys….they’re set up to handle it!
Progress and change go hand in hand. The past year has been challenging for virtually everyone in business, including Serotta but, as 37 years in business has taught me, you have to embrace challenge as a path to stimulate positive change. And most certainly we’ve made many adjustments but always and only with an eye to the future. Survive to thrive we call it….the only thing that will never change is our commitment to delivering the highest standards of performance and quality.
OK….time for me to go out and ride!
Thanks for reading, Ben
What happened to the store and other musings of our destiny… A report from the top…..
It’s been brought to my attention that there’s a lot of concerned chatter on the forum at the moment regarding the health of the company so I thought I’d better take a few minutes to address those concerns.
First of all, we’re quite OK, we really are….at the same I have to admit we’re not doing a great job at everything and that really bothers me. The bikes are fantastic as always. Sales, considering the economy, are much improved from winter levels (well above survival levels, thank you) and the new AE model is finally shipping.
We have a number of areas in which I feel we have been underperforming and they are related to web/electronic based features and services and communication. Having identified these and then overlaying a conservative approach to short term (0-8 months) business (as every intelligent organization is doing now) and I could only draw the following conclusion:
Stop attempting to do things that we can not perform at a high level without significant investments in resources and to focus on the "core business" in which we are better than anyone else- from fit to finish, building and delivering the best bicycles through our highly qualified dealerships.
If I am to be honest with myself, and you, we have always done a lousy job at managing soft goods and direct sales (over the internet). From my perspective, we’ve frustrated people more often than not with poor service, product availability or both. We’ve had great product (from time to time) but failed miserably at providing the right infrastructure and support necessary to do a great job.
Investing in frame materials, R&D and machinery has always trumped everything else. That’s what you do when you lead your category in quality and innovation. None of our direct competitors comes close. And now, as the world tries to right the erratic economy, is not the time for us to invest the resources in this important yet non-mission critical aspect of business. So until we can match that performance standard in accessories we’ve suspended the on-line store and the garage. For now, we’re disappointed as you may be…. but I can assure you, before too long we’ll have plenty of cool Serotta accessories and it will be a pleasant experience to purchase them.
As a temporary measure, Castelli has offered to provide fulfillment duties on Owner’s Club jerseys….they’re set up to handle it!
Progress and change go hand in hand. The past year has been challenging for virtually everyone in business, including Serotta but, as 37 years in business has taught me, you have to embrace challenge as a path to stimulate positive change. And most certainly we’ve made many adjustments but always and only with an eye to the future. Survive to thrive we call it….the only thing that will never change is our commitment to delivering the highest standards of performance and quality.
OK….time for me to go out and ride!
Thanks for reading, Ben