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SUCCESS STORY: DAVID’S BRIDAL
Company Profile: David’s Bridal is the largest specialty bridal retailer in the U.S. Founded in 1950, the company has evolved from selling overstocks and samples to creating and selling its own merchandise in over 250 company-owned locations nationwide. The company also owns After Hours Formal Wear and Priscilla of Boston.
Situation: It’s always a challenge to remain on top and David’s Bridal found itself in a precarious situation. Faced by an influx of competition seeking to directly copy David’s successful business model, the company faced the prospect of not making its sales plan. While the organization was full of many talented people, its team was fragmented. As a result, it was difficult to achieve alignment around corporate goals.
Solution: Bob Huth, CEO of David’s Bridal hired Patti to work with himself and his team to develop a three-year growth plan. Together, they created and developed growth strategies and led a cross-functional team to generate over $130 million incremental annual sales. Key accomplishments included:
| • | Achieving internal alignment of key stakeholders to insure flawless execution by involving the team in weekly brand-building workshops. As a result, company for the first time had definition and agreement of what the brand currently stood for, how it wanted to evolve, its core strengths, who its competitors were and how David’s compared to its defined competitive set. These hypotheses were evaluated against qualitative and quantitative customer feedback. |
Brand team results enabled the team to evaluate and leverage existing businesses. This resulted in the creation, development and implementation of the following strategies:
| • | Plus Size brides which resulted in 10% increased sales by contributing $60 million. |
| • | Designer-label brides which resulted in doubling the sale of Oleg Cassini gowns, successfully launching a new designer label, Monique Luo which has exceeded forecast expectations and generated a “short list” of designer licenses to pursue. Additionally the team identified and created a plan to pursue new markets for growth. |
| • | Assessed After Hours’ growth potential and identified a $100 million dollar pricing opportunity. Created and optimized the messaging and promotional mix to exploit this opportunity. |
| • | Developed a Bridal Accessories growth plan to double sales by encouraging multiple and add-on purchases. |
| • | Created a comprehensive strategic plan designed to increase Latina bridal gown sales by $70 million. |
Results: Company exceeded its 2005 sales plan. Importantly, the company's growth continued into 2006. "The business is on fire,” enthuses Scott Rogers, Director, Strategic Planning. “We are well underway to achieve our 2006 plan and in fact, have increased the plan.”
Company is positioned to continue to maintain its leadership position and remain well in front of its competition.
Huth says, “Patti is a creative thinker. She is a true out-of-the-box thinker who is able to translate her thinking into an action plan and work collaboratively with our internal team to flawlessly implement. This makes her unique.”
Copyright 2009