RIMOWA's Mission

From the overview of RIMOWA in their job description:

Welcome to RIMOWA, the first German Maison of the LVMH Group. We are a global lifestyle brand with a mission to create the essential tools for a lifetime of travel. For more than 120 years, we've dedicated ourselves to develop unique products where function coexists with luxury, heritage with innovation, and craftsmanship with design.

At RIMOWA we believe that great ambitions demand resilient companions. It's why our tools are created with longevity in mind. Because the most meaningful journeys last more than a trip, they last a lifetime.

What The Container Store Stands For

This week we’re taking a look at a unique retail company where organization is at the heart of its organization.

Founded in 1978 The Container Store is an American retail company based in Texas that provides storage and organization products. It is listed as one of the Firms of Endearment, companies that outperform the S&P 500 companies by 14 times through a relentless focus on a higher purpose.

What The Container Store Stands For

Purpose
To help our customers accomplish projects, maximize their space, and make the most of their home.

Vision
To be a beloved brand and the first choice for customized organization solutions and services.

Foundation Principles

  1. 1 Great Person = 3 Good People
  2. Communication IS Leadership
  3. Fill the other guy’s basket to the brim. Making money then becomes an easy proposition.
  4. The Best Selection, Service & Price.
  5. Intuition does not come to an unprepared mind. You need to train before it happens.
  6. Man in the Desert Selling
  7. Air of Excitement!

Strategy

According to the letter from the current CEO, Melissa Reiff, she explains they have four pillars - their strongest differentiators - that support their vision and purpose. Here they are:

Pillar #1: To Own Custom Closets - We are working to improve the customer experience, with enhanced in-store and online merchandising, digital tool improvements, and product innovation.

Pillar #2: Deliver on “Accomplishing Projects” across all customer touchpoints.

For our existing customers and new customers, we are updating our marketing efforts to better communicate our brand purpose of Accomplishing Projects and Maximizing Space. We are updating our visual merchandising to make it easier and clearer to our customers exactly how to accomplish their projects.

Pillar #3: Leverage digital and data insights to enable omni-channel growth.

We are developing digital content and tools to support our brand position online and in-store, driving more traffic to our website, and optimizing for conversion.

Pillar #4: To close the gap on value for the money.

We carry an unparalleled assortment of high-quality products and solutions with competitive pricing. We are working on our price and value perception gap with new pricing, signage, promotion and offer strategies.

Further Reading

Start with Uncontainable: How Passion, Commitment, and Conscious Capitlism Built a Business Where Everyone Thrives, a book by their former CEO, to learn more about their values-based approach to business management.

Also do check out Conscious Capitalism, which The Container Store is a strong advocate of. In fact, former CEO of The Container Store was a college roommate of one of the authors of Conscious Capitalism, John Mackey, who also happens to be Whole Foods Market’s founder.

You can also find an interview over at Inc. with the former CEO about how they grew and benefits of conscious capitalism. For fun, you can also take a look his colorful workspace.

The purposeful ads of Super Bowl
In case you missed it, here are some of the purposeful ads aired at Super Bowl this year.

How Ford rediscovered its purpose

In 2008 three American companies were fighting for their lives.

Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, the Big Three of the automotive industry in US, were running out of cash. To bail them out of the crisis, the government offered them a huge loan. While GM and Chrysler took the offer, Ford declined and bounced back into profitability pulling off a great comeback. This all happened under the leadership of Alan Mulally, a former Boeing executive who stepped in as CEO.

The key to the successful turnaround
Mulally believed “the key to Ford’s future was a return to the principles that had made it so successful in the early days, when Henry Ford was still sitting in the chair he now occupied.”

He dug through Ford’s archives “like a miner convinced that gold was close at hand.” And one day he found an old newspaper ad from 1925.

The ad featured a painting illustrating the original vision of Henry Ford. In the painting, you see a family with their Model T on a hill, and from the hill you could see roads running across the countryside with all kinds of cars on it. Below the painting was the headline — Opening the Highways to All Mankind. Anchored at the bottom was a statement of what Ford stood for.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Take a look at the ad here for yourself.

Lastly, I’d like to share a snippet about purpose from the ad:

An organization, to render any service so widely useful, must be large in scope as well as great in purpose. To conquer the high cost of motoring and to stabilize the factors of production — this is a great purpose.

The language may feel a bit old, but the spirit is still relevant. This document would serve as a polestar to guide Ford’s transformation; it would also be a touchstone to fall back on in times of doubt.

What can we learn from Ford about discovering purpose
Ford’s case study highlights that purpose is vital to success. To discover this purpose, look to the past and revisit your heritage. You’ll likely find important links to (re)connect you to purpose.