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| Jim Loree, president and CEO of Stanley Black & Decker, discusses the company's growth strategy during an interview with The Korea Times in Seoul, Monday. / Courtesy of Strategy Salad |
Stanley Black & Decker stresses innovation
By Kim Ji-soo
With its wide range of products, hand and power tool company Stanley Black & Decker is enjoying growth and popularity in Korea, especially with "do-it-yourself" (DIY) customers, as well as volunteers building for the charity Habitat for Humanity.
Why does the company work with Habitat for Humanity?
"We're a socially minded company. We like to view ourselves as an industrial company with a human touch. We like to take our strengths and match them with the needs a society may have. I think Habitat for Humanity is a great example of that," said Jim Loree, Stanley Black & Decker's president and CEO.
The 173-year-old U.S. company supplies tools for industry, automobiles, construction, infrastructure, health care and security. The company's 70-something brands, including Stanley, DeWalt and Black & Decker, introduced some of the world's first power tools, including the Powerlock tape measure and the handheld vacuum. The current company is a result of the 2010 merger between Stanley Works and Black & Decker.
Loree could not have said it any better: the company invented power tools. Loree, who took CEO post in August this year, said that the company is looking to be perceived as one of the great innovators in the world. He also wants to continue the strong record of share appreciation, where in the past 15 years the company's stock price or shareholder value creation has grown by well over 400 percent, and help build and rebuild communities.
Loree chose Korea as the first stop in his trip through Asia since taking the CEO post. Throughout the week, he will travel to China, Thailand and Indonesia before returning to the United States. He said he chose to stop in Korea first to recognize the local team, which has demonstrated high growth in the past six years, growing fivefold from $13 million in annual revenue in 2010 to an expected $69 million (80 billion won) in 2016. This growth is similar to how Stanley Black & Decker quintupled its $2 billion in annual revenue in 2004 to $11 billion over the past 12 years.
"This is a world-class high performance, and it's a very impressive team and it's a team that shares strong values, team work, collaboration, trust, respect and integrity," Loree said. The Korean market for construction, DIY and consumer hand and power tools is strong, although that for industrial power tools is not so much. One reason for Stanley Black & Decker Korea's growth is its innovative products such as brushless tools. The company hopes that the DeWalt Flexvolt batteries, the latest in the companyinnovative products, will drive future growth.
"This is a flexible volt battery system. It's a 60 volt-battery that will run tools that will never have been run cordless before. That's the first time you will ever see a circular cordless saw, and it's just as powerful as the cord one. If you take this battery and you put it in a 20-volt battery tool, it will run three times longer. So that's really great," he said. The battery will be released inKorea in the first half of 2017.
The innovative battery, when mounted on a 20-, 60-, 120-volt tool, will work through mechanical actuation; and it also has a part that allows for cost-effective shipping, he said. And most importantly, the battery will finally allow tools to run cordlessly, meaning heightened safety and efficiency on job sites.
This battery is the type of breakthrough innovation that happens rarely but once it does it will drive company growth.
"In my view, there are two types of innovation: the core innovation, where you innovate regularly, like finding out how to make the next vacuum cleaner, and other power and hand tools to help users become more productive," he said. But for other type of breakthrough innovations, a company like Stanley Black & Decker needs to maintain a solid base and also to study smaller companies or start-ups.
"These smaller companies, they are agile, they have no paradigms or models in their minds that cannot be broken down and they are disruptive. That disruptive mentality and that commitment to breakthrough innovation is what we are trying to foster," he said.
Loree joined Stanley Black & Decker in 1999 as vicepresident and chief finance officer (CFO). He was named executive vice president (EVP) and CFO in 2002; EVP and chief operating officer (COO) in 2009; and president and COO in 2013. Prior to joining the company, Loree worked at General Electric (GE) from 1980 through 1999. He said he learned a lot during his time at GE, spending his time both on the manufacturing side, which is about operations and cost controls, and the services side, which is about high growth.
Asked to share what he learned through his years in leadership, he said no matter what level in an organization one may be at, one has the potential to be either a leader or a follower.
"If you start practicing leadership early in your career, you get better at it because you get more practice, and if you see yourself as a leader and are effective, others will view you as a leader; and that will enable you to climb up the corporate ladder faster," he said.
More importantly, he said, the strategy of helping others succeed is very rewarding.
"If you're working in a healthy corporate environment that rewards performance and success and good values, make sure that you're creating value every day, and going above and beyond what's expected of you in the job to create value," he said.
Loree also spoke about his work with the Jim and Rebecca Loree Foundation, which he started with his wife by asking guests to make donations in lieu of gifts during their wedding in 2008. He said that he and his wife through the foundation also work with organizations in the local Hartford area in Connecticut, matching inner-city youth with arts and education.Loree, who graduated fromUnion College, also serves as a Trustee of Union College, a director of Hartford Hospital and a director of the Jim and Rebecca Loree Foundation.
Asked if he thought the current political uncertainty in Korea may affect Stanley Black & Decker's business, Loree said the company, which has teams in more than 200 countries, faces geopolitical elements.
"We are not going to change strategy based on events unless they are cataclysmic. ... We will be here and we're not going to change the strategy because we have confidence in Korea," he said.
Stanley Black & Decker
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| Employees of Stanley Black & Decker Korea pose together after taking part in Habitat for Humanity work earlier in the year. / Courtesy of Stanley Black & Decker Korea |
Stanley Black & Decker, an S&P 500 and FORTUNE 500 company, is the world's leading provider of tools and storage, the world's second-largest commercial electronic security company, and a leading engineered fastening systems provider, with unique growth platforms in the Oil & Gas and Infrastructure industries. Well-known brands include: STANLEY, BLACK+DECKER, DEWALT, Porter-Cable, Bostitch, Facom, Mac Tools, Proto, Vidmar, Lista, and more. The company is now in 200 nations with more than 50,000 employees. Stanley Black & Decker Korea was established in 1994, and now has about 70 employees. Its sales volume as of 2016 is estimated to be around $69 million (80 billion won). Stanley Black & Decker , as part of its corporate social responsibility, works with Habitat for Humanity.
