Built For Growth: Expanding Your Business Around The Corner Or Across The Globe - Couverture rigide

From Kirkus Reports, February 10, 2005  Volume 2, Issue 1

Built for Growth: Expanding Your Business Around the Corner or Across the Globe
By: Arthur Rubinfeld and Collins Hemingway
Publisher: Wharton School Publishing
Pub Date: March 2005

With a first section titled “Make No Little Plans,” Rubinfeld makes clear his philosophy of viable business expansion. As the man instrumental in taking Starbucks to the nearest corner, he knows from expansion. He also knows about the mainstays of any successful business: functional design, staying on budget, maximizing profits, and customized customer service (each of which is treated in its own section). From this strong foundation, the business person can begin to think big, or “Go Long,” in Rubinfeld’s parlance. The first step is to create a business plan, which the author explicates in detail. After assuring that the economic plan is rock-solid, then make sure that employees will remain motivated. Rubinfeld also has plenty of ideas on how to maximize revenue with a minimum investment: a pizza chain can market its sauce, a crafts store can offer lessons to shoppers for a premium, and so on. Although the sections on real estate and “locationing” are particularly valuable given the author’s experience, nearly every page has a concrete idea, suggestion, or caution. Rubinfeld delivers serious value for money here, and small business owners and managers would do well to take advantage of it.

Financial Times

March 28 2005

By Jonathan Birchall

BooksBUILT FOR GROWTH

Expanding your business around the corner or across the globe

By Arthur Rubinfeld and Collins Hemmingway

Wharton School Publishing $25.95

Ever wondered what happened to the glass and metal storage bins full of coffee beans that used to stand around in Starbucks' coffee shops? The design team, apparently, thought they would give customers a subliminal connection to old-world in-store coffee roasters, but without that old-world fire risk.

But the company's operations people never liked the idea. The staff didn't use them. The storage bins became just a store decoration. And then they were slowly phased out.

The hand-made pendant lampshades over the curved wooden platform used to present drinks to the customer, on the other hand, are still around - spotlighting each beverage as if it were something more than, well, just a coffee.

After 10 years leading Starbucks' store development programme, during which time the company expanded from 150 stores to more than 4,000, Arthur Rubinfeld has an eye for that kind of detail.

Trained as an architect, his early career included working as construction manager on a hotel building in Manhattan; he moved on to directing workers on the building site of one of the most successful retail brands in recent business history.

So, appropriately for a man whose made his name in bricks and mortar, or at least in terracotta tile and modular countertops, he has written a very hands-on manual for the would-be entrepreneurial retail brand builder. Strangely, for a book that celebrates original thinking, Wharton Publishing (an imprint of Pearson, owner of the Financial Times) opted for a title that echoes Jim Collins' best selling Built to Last. But this is a far more wildly discursive production, ranging from tips on signing a good lease, to the importance of a unified concept of design, to plain old-fashioned business street smarts.

Trying to get a grip on the economic demographics of a potential location for a new store or restaurant? Check out the clothes hanging in a local dry cleaners (too many shirts is bad news). Or assess the range of ethnic foods available in a local supermarket - greater variety in an up-market supermarket means more adventurous shoppers.

But it is the anecdotes from Starbucks' evolution, and from Rubinfeld's subsequent career as a brand development consultant, that drive the book forward. From store design and location to "high touch" customer service, the brand's expansion provides the paradigm for the value of combining imaginative planning with hard-nosed execution.

The author describes, for instance, how a design team came up with the concept of using design "touchstones" of earth, fire, water and air that were supposed to evoke the development of the coffee bean (growth, roasting, brewing and aroma). Sounds zany, perhaps, but it inspired the palette of colours used and the organic feel of the stores, and in turn shaped other decisions, such as the choice of round, rather than square tables, aimed at creating a less formal mood that made customers more relaxed.

Taken all together, the design concept worked in a way that the company's rivals found impossible to emulate with attempts to mimic any individual element such as the wallpaper, or the lighting.

The process also resulted in a kit-of-parts approach, where 80 per cent of every new store could be fitted with a selection of mass produced standard components, with local designers then given leeway to customise the remaining 20 per cent to meet the conceptual requirement of individuality. The stores in turn were being directed to areas selected by both economic and educational demographics, with the exact location of each initial bridgehead outlet individually chosen for its high-profile impact.

Sometimes the authors' principles seem self-evident, such as seeking staff who are prepared to make eye contact with the customers. But there are also enough failures around the world's shopping zones to suggest there's a pretty big market for instruction, and he tells his stories with the enthusiasm of a man who clearly loves the detail of retail.

You can feel his pain over the foolishness of a cashier at the head of a long check-out line asking customers whether they had found everything they wanted. Or his discomfort over dirty tables in an ice-cream parlour, or chefs cooking out front in an Italian restaurant wearing tatty sneakers and scruffy beards.

This is the nitty-gritty of the competitive retail war being waged across the US, and elsewhere too, in the battle to persuade customers to differentiate. At its heart, he argues, is the struggle between two visions of the retail future - "the death spiral of commoditisation and price wars or the life spiral of creativity, quality and differentiation".

The big brands are increasingly seeking to personalise the impersonal - Wal-Mart already has its greeters at the door whose job is to make customers feel wanted.

For Rubinfeld, the smaller retailer will only survive in what he calls the "New Age of Retail" by defining a defensible lifestyle or speciality niche. And once there, they need to secure a position with "high touch and human engagement". After all, that's how Starbucks persuaded people to spend all that money on what is, well, just a cup of coffee.

 Review in Library Journal, May 1 2005

RUBINFELD, ARTHUR & COLLINS HEMINGWAY. Built for Growth: Expanding Your Business Around the Corner or Across the Globe. Wharton. 2005. c.256p. index. ISBN 0-13-146574-0. $26.95. BUS

Creating and developing a retail brand can be challenging, but as businessman Rubinfeld and coauthor Hemingway maintain, it must be done properly. Rubinfeld knows whereof he speaks, having played a role in Starbucks's retail expansion and worked on Oakley, Gateway, Adidas, and Washington Mutual brand-building campaigns. The authors intend the book to

be "a valuable primer on all aspects of retail: brand, location, people, finance, property management, expansion strategy and long-term thinking." To that end, they advocate a three-step approach-ideate, create, and execute-which, in a nutshell, translates into formulating ideas for a business, creating viable business solutions, and then successfully

following through. While the importance of "location, location, location," high-quality retail design, and optimal customer service may seem obvious, the authors stress that these are in fact vital and often overlooked retail

building blocks. An informative read for both beginners and seasoned retailers, this outstanding book abounds with insightful case studies and expert advice that should enhance the success of any retail brand.

Recommended for public libraries and all business collections.

- Richard Drezen, Washington Post/New York City Bureau

Arthur Rubinfeld, the architect behind Starbucks' expansion, helped build Starbucks into one of the world's top brands.

As executive vice president at Starbucks, Rubinfeld built a multi-faceted store development and design organization with the talent, in-house processes, and systems necessary to execute rapid expansion. Under his leadership, Starbucks grew from 100 stores to nearly 4,000 stores worldwide, and established innovative co-tenancy and co-branding relationships with companies ranging from Wells Fargo to Barnes and Noble. Starbucks' store development capabilities remain the standard by which the industry measures brand presentation, real estate site selection, store design, construction management, and asset management.

In 2002, Rubinfeld founded AIRVISION, now emerging as one of the world's leading developers of integrated brand positioning, strategic growth, retail design, and operations. Since its founding, the AIRVISION team has worked closely on the development of many of the nation's most recognized brands including Oakley, Gateway, adidas, and Washington Mutual.He can be reached at arthur@airvision.net

Collins Hemingway is best known as the coauthor with Bill Gates on the #1 best-seller, Business @ the Speed of Thought, and has worked in the business and technology arena for 30 years. A Microsoft director of business development and international marketing, Hemingway was an integral part of the company that virtually defined the digital revolution. Through his firm, Escape Velocity Ventures, he lectures and writes on topics as diverse as management, aviation, medicine, technology futures, and the importance of conscience in creating profitable enterprises.

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