Despite such mishaps, the volunteers soon saw firsthand how much paperwork the computers could save them and how the information they held could help in selling. One salesman wanted no part of it and left. The others -- egged on and trained by the early users -- gradually climbed on board. Kohl kept revising the software and replacing the hardware, no expense spared. He told salespeople to call him or another programmer anytime of the day or night if they encountered a problem.
Today Leegin's 60 outside salespeople enter orders directly into those 2000SXEs, no paper required. They transmit the orders to the office by modem every night, along with messages to anyone in the company they need to contact. Information flows both ways. The central computer updates the salespeople on phone-in orders and payment records and credit problems in their territories. It provides daily information on belt availability, no small matter in a company that now produces more than 1,000 styles in a range of sizes. ("That lets me say, 'Those belts you sold? I can get them back in here right away,' " explains Patton.) It automatically updates the portables' software, correcting bugs and adding features. Recently, Kohl added a database to track the competition and asked salespeople to note on their screens who else was selling belts in each store. Now, he boasts, "I can tell you not only what we sold yesterday in Chicago but every other company that's selling belts in Chicago."
To sales managers such as Doug Patton -- Perry's older brother -- the computers provide daily data on how the troops are doing: Number of accounts visited, by store type. Number of categories sold. (Too few categories probably mean stores are missing some sales.) Recurring problems will be grist for one of the 10 or so training-and-discussion sessions salespeople attend each year.
To Kohl, the computers provide instant market information: "We know what to manufacture, because we know what's selling." They also create an account database that remains with Leegin when salespeople leave. Most important, the computers further his strategic objective, which is to make Leegin indispensable to its customers. "Our goal was to know more about the stores' business than they know themselves." Where belts are concerned, acknowledges Zuidema, Leegin does.
* * *
How many companies have boosted sales only to watch their production and support systems crumble? At Leegin, the office and the factory were already stretched to capacity. If the new computers made salespeople more productive -- or if, as Kohl expected, the machines made it easier to add and train new ones -- the company would likely face meltdown. Every problem would be shunted off from one department to another. Everyone would have an excuse.
So in September 1988, at the beginning of the holiday production season, an apparel company's busiest, most frantic time, the maniac struck again. From then on, declared Jerry Kohl, Leegin would have no more order processing, no more customer-service or credit and collection departments. All those functions would be folded into one job, account specialist. A pair of account specialists would cover a territory. They would be responsible for everything that customers or salespeople might need from the office. All by themselves.
Panic set in. "I figured either this was going to be some marvel of an idea," says Helen Moreno, "or it was going to be the end of my position here and the end of a lot of other people's positions, too. It was really, really scary." Some people's worst fears abruptly came true. The jobs they were accustomed to vanished. They had no chance of qualifying for the new ones. Three of the dozen or so office workers left right away. Three more were let go later on.
Those chosen for the new jobs plunged into classes, for many the first since high school. How to process an order. How to approve credit or collect a bill. For four months the group met two or three times a week, often from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. The panic subsided into chronic, efficiency-killing anxiety. Queasy about asking for money, the fledgling account specialists postponed collection calls. Unnerved by demanding customers, they pulled "picking tickets" -- shipping instructions -- from the computer and walked them into the warehouse, highlighting special requests and penciling in changes as they went. Shipping clerks found themselves dealing with 12 different people, each with an urgent need, several times a day. Some orders went out twice. Some never went out at all.
If Kohl had doubts, he doesn't remember them. "You lose some people as they get frustrated," he says breezily. "But we were getting people to feel more a part of the company." Just such single-mindedness, of course, was probably what made the whole thing work. Even after the initial training period, classes continued, once a week, for two hours at a crack, in communications and computer skills and a dozen other topics. (They continue to this day.) Kohl and information-systems director Kimmi Pitchford constantly refined the office's software, streamlining procedures, allowing the specialists to record idiosyncratic but critical information about every account ("pays bills late but always pays"). Moreno concentrated on getting shipping and the account specialists to work together, assigning responsibilities to each department.
Maybe most important, Kohl spent money to help account specialists meet customer needs more easily. He built up hefty inventories of Leegin's fastest-moving styles, then introduced Leegin Express, a program that guarantees shipment of those styles in 10 working days. Last year he and a team from the office developed procedures for a "quick ship" program, allowing orders in before 1 p.m. to go out the same day. Today Leegin Express accounts for some 60% of the company's business. About 80 quick-ship orders are filled every day.
