It happened so regularly that the hospitality industry could mark it on their annual calendar. A virtual tsunami of new products from RAK Porcelain, distributed by its subsidiary RAK USA, would debut at Chicago’s McCormick Center every May before landing on hospitality tabletops all over the world.
“The company told us,” said Paul LeBarron, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, “that we’re going to keep everyone at the ready for our customers if they need us.”
The company began by making sure they were fully stocked across all product lines, so they could be ready for distribution when lockdowns freed hospitality clients to resume business as usual. “It’s not been easy, but through the entire COVID time, we have continued receiving containers even as transport times have become extended.”
Then, they decided to use the downtime to analyze every granular piece of RAK USA’s operations. The company identified 35 areas of emphasis and distributed them to the team, from the handling of incoming distribution center orders to the way samples and sales orders were processed through the customer service system.
Based on the team’s analysis, the company decided to streamline operations, consolidating all operations in a new, state-of-the-art distribution center in Oakdale, Pennsylvania, and closed its headquarters office space in Long Island, New York. More importantly, the company worked to put the right people in the right positions, so they would be ready to go when industry demand levels returned to normal, and to continue the work they’d already done to improve customer relationships.
John Marino, the force behind those customer relationship improvements, became RAK USA’s new President. “Several years ago, when John Marino joined us, he really began to tie the sales pieces all together for us,” LeBarron recalled. “With the U.S. market made up of multiple regions and various types of accounts, John’s extensive market experience really helped us pull all the parts together.”
LeBarron assumed his current VP position and was joined in leadership by Kurt Larson, RAK USA’s new VP of National Accounts. The company also created a new Regional Sales Manager position in Florida, for which they tapped veteran tabletop manager Franz Tarafa.
Even with its focus on restructuring, the company still managed to push forward with a triumphant new product launch: the RAKstone dinner collection, one of RAK Porcelain’s most wide-ranging product lines yet.
But the biggest triumph for RAK USA, says LeBarron, was the transformation in the company’s culture and attitude. The company banked on its people, and in return, unleashed the most powerful resource any business has to offer: human ingenuity.
Instead of worrying about its survival, RAK USA took advantage of lighter volume, putting its focus on the future and making sure it was ready to lead when the hospitality industry regained its footing.
“I am probably more excited about RAK USA right now, even going through this pandemic, than I have ever been,” LeBarron concluded.
For more information on RAK USA, please visit https://www.rakporcelain.com/us-en.
