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HIGH POINT — A number of furniture executives, attracted to the energy and potential of the Internet, left established companies to gamble on dot-coms. Most have returned to the industry, but they are, without exception, glad they tried.
They saw the industry from a different perspective, worked with dynamic thinkers and entrepreneurs, and got a view of the Internet-enabled future.
Fred Starr, for example, once president of Thomasville and now president and chief executive officer of Natuzzi Americas, called his efforts to launch two different dot-coms "a great learning experience. I had a chance to work with very bright young people who certainly look at the world in different ways."
In 2000 and 2001, Starr worked with former Lexington chief Jeff Young in launching namesuknow.com, a consumer-facing furniture portal, and with a Chicago-based group in launching easyfurnish.com, which also sought to bring online consumer traffic to brick-and-mortar retailers.
Neither took flight, but Starr says he benefited from both.
"I've certainly been through all the challenges of business startups," he said. "It gave me a people perspective (that) is considerably wider. And I've gained a fairly good grasp of Internet technology and its potential."
Johne Albanese, who now works with Starr as chief marketing officer at Natuzzi Americas, left Bassett after two decades to start up business-to-business dot-com Exclaim.
"Working for an Internet company, I met and spoke with a great number of the industry's most well-thought-of leaders and came away from the experience feeling not despair, but rather greater hope and excitement about the prospects of our industry," Albanese said.
Geoff Beaston, now president at Fine Furniture Design and Marketing, at one time was responsible for engineering LifeStyle Furnishings International's Internet strategy. He left LFI for a top marketing post at e-retailer FurnitureFind.com before returning to furniture manufacturing in late 2000.
"My feeling now is that I'm back in business doing what I love and enjoy," said Beaston, who also was a long-time executive at Lexington. "I can see my ideas on the (factory) floor, concretely. It feels much better."
But the dot-com ride helped teach Beaston that sound business principles don't fly out the window when a new medium like the Internet comes along. He learned when a sense of urgency is real and when it is counterfeit.
The dot-com boom "made good business people feel like they were behind, like they had to make some really big decisions really fast," said Beaston. "There is no need to rush sound decision-making."
He said the dot-bombs underlined the verity that "there really are no free lunches."
An invaluable playground
Graham McInnes, who was a first mover (a business term the Internet gleefully seized on) in putting TEMA Contemporary on the Web more than six years ago, said his online interactions with consumers have been invaluable in his new role at La Difference, a furniture retailer in Richmond, Va.
"I don't have any regrets," he said. "TEMA was a good playground for me to experiment with a lot of ideas I had about running a retail business. The success validated most of them and taught me a lot about those that failed. For that, I will be forever grateful."
The Web taught McInnes that consumers are starving for service, and are willing to try alternative channels to get it, he said.
"The so-called New Economy was all about the empowerment of the consumer (and) putting the tools and information into their hands and letting them make the choice," said McInnes, vice president of operations and business development at La Difference. "That is the opposite of the way the furniture industry is managed."
If there's one thing the industry needs to learn from the dot-com experience, he said, it is that communications between manufacturer, retailer and consumer must be "wide open. Each level has plenty to learn from the others."
Young, who joined Starr in the ill-fated namesuknow.com venture, is mulling options that could bring him back to furniture manufacturing. He said his Internet venture showed him how much technology offers the furniture industry in uniting retailers, manufacturers and consumers.
"Despite our best efforts, we were unable to solve, to the majority of retailers' and manufacturers' satisfaction, the very complex problem of pricing and distribution," Young said. "All (my) future business plans will begin with the furniture retail channel as I envision it to be," which is to say a channel that leverages technology to meet consumer needs and wants.
Blocking and tackling
For Lester Craft Jr., former editor in chief of Furniture/Today, the real lesson in the boom-and-bust dot-com cycle has little to do with "the hype everyone read about," he said. "It is strictly about using Internet-enabled software to do a far better job of blocking and tackling: cutting costs in the supply chain, reducing inventory while increasing turns, presenting a more responsive, 'always-on' sales presence, (and) getting real-time information into the hands of the sales force."
After launching E-Commerce Business magazine, which Furniture/Today parent Cahners axed after nine months, Craft moved to Southern California as editor in chief at Line56, a business-to-business publication. The fact that joining the dot-com world took him away from the furniture industry is his only regret, he said.
Tim Branscome, formerly international trade director for the North Carolina Department of Commerce, agreed with Craft, saying, "The gold diggers left town before they found gold. The real gold is still there. It is not buried in the PC. Rather, it is in the board room and strategic plan."
Branscome left the department to join London-based B2B portal Corridor, which shut down after its parent was acquired. He now is a consultant to the furniture industry specializing in Germany and the United Kingdom.
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