THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 6, 1995 TAG: 9503040316
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Talk of the Town
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
Just as you would expect from someone who makes a living as a futurist, Watts Wacker has peered ahead and sounded a warning. ``We're in the throes of cultural schizophrenia,'' Wacker said.
Retail executives recently gathered in New York to hear Wacker, of Yankelovich Partners, a market research firm in Connecticut. His message seems pertinent for Hampton Roads' 7,430 retail store operators.
Shoppers no longer shop for pleasure. They don't have the time. So retailers must work hard to create value. Trouble is, value no longer means lowest price.
Wacker said values change relentlessly with each shopping situation and each kind of store. Someone shopping for a gift might consider the box as important as the gift inside it. Moreover, shoppers want multiple levels of service and multiple levels of quality in each store.
They want salespeople who help but don't push. And they want good, better and best quality levels, even in discount stores.
Years ago, Richfood Holdings had been thinking of acquiring parts of Camellia Foods.
What put a snag in those negotatiations was union troubles at Norfolk-based Camellia.
The United Food and Commercial Workers was trying to unionize Camellia's grocery stores, including the Be-Lo supermarkets.
Richmond-based Richfood didn't want any part of it.
Insiders say they weren't surprised when Richfood's purchase of Camellia's distribution routes called for the layoffs of 300 workers at Camellia's warehouse and distribution center.
The distribution facility in Norfolk is unionized.
Norfolk's very own Metro Machine Corp. is one of nine companies interested in taking over the troubled Portland Ship Yard in Portland, Ore.
No one was more surprised to read that bit of information in the Journal of Commerce, a national newspaper for the trade and transportation set, than Metro Machine president Richard Goldbach.
Fact is, the Journal report was wrong. Goldbach told us he never was interested in the Portland yard.
It all began, Goldbach said, when a woman called from the Port of Portland, owner of the shipyard, and talked him into sending information about Metro Machine. The next thing he knew he was reading about his company in the Journal of Commerce.
``I told her I had too many things to do already,'' Goldbach said.
Those things include Navy repair work in Norfolk and conversions for the Military Sealift Command in Chester, Pa.
The Malcolm Baldridge Awards are a standard of excellence bestowed on well-run companies in the United States. Recently the Norfolk-based Better Business Bureau came out with its own awards modeled on Baldridge such benchmarks as leadership, quality assurance and customer satisfaction. The BBB Quality Award winners:
JL Associates (large service company), Burrito Haven (small service company), Beach Ford (large retailer), Beltone Hearing Aid Center (small retail), Morson Inc. (manufacturing), U.S. Air Force 1st Fighter Wing (government).
The first motel built on Hampton Boulevard in Norfolk has dropped its affiliation with Econo Lodge. It's now called Welcome Inn Naval Base. Summit Properties of Virginia Beach, which manages the motel, chose the new name to reflect the higher level of customer service.
Three days after extolling on the risks and rewards of derivatives to the Economics Club of Hampton Roads, Craig T. Bouchard was back in London - just in time for the derivatives-inflicted meltdown of Barings Brothers.
Could his bank suffer the same meltdown? Highly unlikely, Bouchard said. First Chicago's derivatives department has split its trading and back-office responsibilities among three independent parties. by CNB