It was, without a doubt, his company's "darkest moment," says CEO Rob Tolleson.
Growing at a 30 percent annual clip, CPO Commerce, an online retailer of power and hand tools made by Black & Decker, DeWalt, Makita, and other manufacturers, embarked on a major IT upgrade. The resulting software malfunctions would have crushed a lesser company.
Unprocessed orders began to pile up in the warehouse, generating zero revenue even as vendor invoices poured in. Products that were in stock were listed as out of stock as inventory management went haywire. Adding to the company's woes was the need to train and then retrain staff as new systems came online, stretching everyone's patience, and bandwidth, to the breaking point. CPO, which had never missed a quarterly forecast, missed two in a row.
Not a single employee bailed during that hellish six months, a source of considerable pride to Tolleson. What kept the team together? The company's commitment to total transparency, including an embrace of open-book management. Financials, inventory, order volumes -- there was nothing going on that every employee didn't know about.
Alan Lenertz, CPO's vice president of operations, says that made all the difference. Because everyone had ready access to inventory and order information, employees spotted the problems more quickly than they might have and, accustomed to a collaborative work style, were able to collectively brainstorm on solutions.