Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | August 21, 2017 | Worcester Business Journal 41 eClinicalWorks, MCPHS must lead through choppy seas The Worcester Business Journal welcomes letters to the editor and commentary submissions. Please send submissions to Brad Kane, editor, at bkane@wbjournal.com. Editor's note: Aubuchon Hardware announced Aug. 3 it will close its Westminster distribution center by the end of the year and lay off 31 employees. Recently a customer walked into one of our stores in search of a megaphone to use at an event that same day. She could not return to the Radio Shack where she origi- nally bought the broken one in her hand, and there was no time for online ordering. She is far from alone in not being able to return to a familiar brick-and-mortar place and consult someone with know how. Consider brands regional and national on the scrap heap: Caldor, Tower Records, Circuit City, Sports Authority, Filene's, Blockbuster, AJ Wright, KB toys, Villager's Hardware. The news of Amazon buying Whole Foods sent a shiver through every retailer's bones. This is the most important retail development in recent memory. Retail is hard. The landscape is challenging. Clinging to the status quo deals dire consequences. At Aubuchon Hardware, we value a 109-year family commitment to cus- tomer service, resilience and innovation. Never has there been a more urgent time for us to become more efficient and less cookie-cutter to harness sales opportunities specific to our unique markets. We will move smartly to invest in more competitive prices and give our local loyal customers an easy-to-use digital experience. At the same time, we will invest in our dedicated and high- performing employees with more pay and training. We are changing quickly to stay competitive. That means taking bold steps to shift away from our traditional approach of centralized distribution and stocking decisions. Since February, we have converted three stores – Cohasset, Mass., Moultonborough, N.H., and Easton, N.Y. – to a different system of merchandising, using results of a local study as a guide and giving our store managers more leeway to determine how to utilize their space and which products to stock. Rather than depending solely on our central warehouse in Westminster, which can only hold 15,000 items, we collaborated with multiple larger whole- salers to provide access to over 200,000 items. On average in each store, we added 19 percent more lin- ear footage and 36 percent more products (6,500+ new items in each store!). The final merchandising plans and pricing strategies are unique to local demand. We are as committed as ever to giving our customers better selection and better pricing, but on the downside, we have had to cut positions in distribution, buying and merchandising at our headquarters, where 95 percent of the stocking decisions were made. These decisions are not easy, but they are necessary in order for a family-owned business like ours to hold its own against retail titans in the age of online shopping and same-day delivery. This is the end of the cookie-cutter era for Aubuchon Hardware, and in the long run we believe these changes will not only help us thrive and grow, but ensure our loyal customers will have more good choices. Aubuchon is president and CEO of Aubuchon Hardware. Competing in modern retail V I E W P O I N T E D I T O R I A L BY WILLIAM AUBUCHON, IV Special to the Worcester Business Journal William Aubuchon, IV WO R D F R O M T H E W E B Comment of the issue "There's a reason Notre Dame des Canadiens church is empty. Times change. Holding on to everything historical is pointless." -Anonymous commenter, Aug. 11, on a WBJ poll ask- ing readers the best way to maintain a city's identity WBJ Tweet of the month "#HipsterHudson is getting more hip! Congrats @MedusaBrewing" - Katelin (@banksmartkate), Aug. 10, on Medusa Brewing Co. in Hudson planning to open a canning facility W Facebook feedback "In rich times, you drink to celebrate. In poor times, you drink to forget, a lot." -Trave M. Harmon, Aug. 15, on Greater Good Imperial Brewing Co. coming to Worcester "This is incredible. Great job, Worcester!" -AiVi Nguyen, Aug. 14, on the city's $27 million solar project L eaders of any stripe can navigate through times of steady growth, but managing a cri- sis from the top separates the great leaders. In the early days of the Great Recession, businesses switched to crisis mode: some did not survive, most made it through, while others leveraged strengths to drive significant growth. This summer, two of our Central Massachusetts' largest, most stable and growing enterprises have been tested. How they come out on the other side will tell us much about their leadership, and the organization's ability to navigate choppy seas. Westborough's eClinicalWorks has been hum- ming along for 18 years as a great entrepreneurial success story. Five founding partners took an elec- tronic medical records firm from a small startup to 4,500 employees and $440 million in revenues by 2016. However, in May, the company settled a whistleblower lawsuit alleging false claims about the software's capabilities for a stunning $155 mil- lion. CEO Girish Navani said, "Today's settlement recognizes that we have addressed the issues raised, and have taken significant measures to pro- mote compliance and transparency. We are pleased to put this matter behind us and concentrate all of our efforts on our customers and continued inno- vations to enhance patient care delivery." If the settlement were for $1.5 million, or even $15 million, perhaps setting it aside would be pos- sible. But $155 million? A penalty that massive is not so easily dismissed from the minds of employ- ees, customers or the marketplace. In Downtown Worcester, the city's renaissance is in no small part due to the investment of the area's fastest growing college, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences (MCPHS). The Boston-based school has expanded its Worcester footprint dramatically over the last decade in new and renovated buildings and student housing, bringing life and vitality to the city's core. But just last month the Boston Globe reported MCPHS's Boston campus had been placed on academic pro- bation by its accrediting council for overcrowded buildings and not enough staff. While the school's Worcester and Manchester, N.H. campuses were not impacted, it sends a cautionary note about the school's rapid expansion, and management has to be asking itself if it was paying sufficient attention to conditions at its headquarters. In both cases, the public relations side of the house wants to artfully put the fire out and move on, while leadership should know confidence of customers and employees has been shaken, and an honest appraisal of what went wrong is needed. While the two situations are quite different, they have similarities. How did senior management miss the problem? When they found out about it, what was their reaction? Were they accountable for the mistake? What has changed in the organization giving employees and customers/students confi- dence the issues have been thoroughly addressed? When the bad news hits, there needs to be a thoughtful public reaction. But the real test of leadership is in the following weeks and months. What are they doing to set a new tone, be account- able to employees and customers, communicate openly on an ongoing basis about changes and progress towards their goals? Both organizations are huge drivers in Central Massachusetts' econo- my. Here's hoping they will continue that path. W

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