CEO Sri Solur | Transforming a Top Retail Brand to Compete in the Digital Economy

Sri Solur, CEO of Kenmore Brands at Transformco, takes listeners through his journey of transforming the Kenmore brand in today’s digital world, leaving behind its one-hundred-year history as a top Sears appliance brand. Hear how through his leadership he changed the company’s "retail-captive" culture to embrace innovation, while also applying his 25+ years of experience as a Chief Product Officer at top product-based high-tech companies such as Hewlett Packard and Berkshire Grey.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Jeanne Gray: I'm Jeanne Gray, publisher of American Entrepreneurship Today and host of the podcast series, Experienced Voices, where I talk with highly accomplished people who share the critical elements that led to their success.

 Our guest today on Experienced Voices is Sri Solur, CEO of Kenmore Brands. Sri shares how he initiated the transformation of the Kenmore brand, now part of Transform Co, from a retail captive culture at Sears to one that embraces the ongoing innovation of the digital economy. focusing on decarbonization, sustainability, and home electrification.

Having previously held positions as chief product officer at CloudPoint, part of Hewlett Packard, and industrial robotics leader Berkshire Gray, he describes how leadership, culture, communication, and transparency led to legacy Kenmore personnel having a key role in the brand's success, now being carried in over 6, 000 retail stores nationwide.

 Sri, welcome to Experienced Voices. Tell us a little bit about your involvement in Kenmore. When did that happen? And what are some of your goals? 

Sri Solur: First of all, thank you for having me on this podcast. I'm honored to be here. and will give you a brief history of when I joined Kenmore Brands.

When I talk about brands, we also have a brand that is also well-known, Diehard, in addition to Kenmore and on Sears properties we can also sell Craftsman.  The definition of Kenmore Brands is Kenmore, Diehard, and Craftsman. I took on the role of CEO in May of 2022, so I'm approximately 19 months into this job.

I'm extremely grateful because they took a chance on me. I'm a first-time CEO. I've always been a product builder. I was a chief product officer before this for an industrial robotics company. Before that, I was a chief product officer for a small appliance company. Thankfully for both of the companies during my tenure, we took the company public.  A decade before that I have always built and led product-based businesses, but mostly on the high-tech side.

Jeanne Gray: What was your primary goal that you set upon joining Kenmore Brands? 

Sri Solur: It's simple: Transformation. The goal is the transformation of the Kenmore brand that has existed since 1913.

I'm just a caretaker of the brand at this point. But I wanted to make sure. I set this brand on a growth path for the next few decades. Kenmore as a brand has reinvented itself in the last hundred-plus years. And I wanted to make sure that this brand continues to thrive in terms of adding value to all Americans...for the next hundred-plus years. 

Jeanne Gray: Now, the Kenmore name has always been associated with Sears. And now we spoke about this before, the current culture is focusing on the digital economy and getting the consumer to embrace things differently. So, how are you molding or recrafting the Kenmore brand given what the consumers are now having to do?

Sri Solur: So, there are multiple parts to this transformation. The first part of the transformation is internal to the company. We had a retail captive culture and let me explain this. When you talk about a retail captive culture, let's look at some of the OEMs who made products for Kenmore...some of the well-known companies in the world of appliances made products for Kenmore.

We had the GEs, we had the LGs, and they all made products for us. And the value of Kenmore was closely associated with the retail footprint that Sears offered. When consumers would walk in, they would see all these appliances with the Kenmore brand and those appliances were made by the well-known OEMs.

Now, when Sears stores started to close, when the world started to go more and more digital, brick-and-mortar stores started to close. The very OEMs who are creating products for us looked at this and said, aha, now the distribution component is gone. Now Kenmore as a brand will compete with our house brand in the external channels.

And as you know, the major appliance marketplace is not growing at an exponential rate. And if you want to grow your brand the best way is to take share away from another brand. And in this scenario, the other brand very well could be Kenmore. So that's one example of a retail captive culture, which affected our supplier base.

Similarly, internally, when you look at the retail captive culture, it was hierarchical and I'll give you some very interesting dichotomies. You know, I came from the world of software and high tech. We have a culture of sprints in software. We incorporated that culture of sprints into Kenmore.

So now we work on weekly sprints, legal works on weekly sprints, product engineering, supply chain, and marketing. Every Friday, we have a good understanding of the problems or in the software world, you know, as you call it backlogs that we're going to solve. 

The new contracts that we're going to sign equivalent to features and getting the whole company to operate in a different mindset, that is more relevant to the digital economy was needed, which is very different from the retail captive culture. That's, that's an example from an internal company operations perspective.

Another aspect, the cultural aspect, Jeanne that I want to highlight is the world works on a calendar in, in the past era, you set meetings on the calendar, but in the new world order, you work with a stopwatch. So I can give you several dichotomies or differentiation from a cultural perspective that helped.

Accelerate the brand transformation, the company transformation, the supplier network transformation, and the distribution network transformation. That's the beauty of what we have accomplished in the last year. And I'm more than happy to walk you through some of those accomplishments, Jeanne, and, and, and, and you'll enjoy this.

Has a great case study of transformation. 

Jeanne Gray: What you were describing, does it emerge or become visible through your product engineering? 

Sri Solur: Absolutely. Jeanne, when you start a product development process for any appliance, even if it's a small kitchen appliance or an IOT product, it's usually, even in a company that works significantly fast, it's a year.

And for major appliances, It's 18 to 24 months.

Last year, at this time, Jeanne, we had literally zero SKUs incoming into our distribution centers. Zero.

Today, I'm very happy to say that across all product categories, laundry, cooking, refrigeration, dishwashing, we have products flowing in. That's within less than a year. It is unheard of. So culturally, the transformation added significant levels of agility into the system, hitherto unknown to the major appliance industry.

Jeanne Gray: How aware are you of your competitors in the race with you to stay abreast of all this change? and consumers even becoming  more demanding of products that have greater ease of use? 

Sri Solur: Look, the good part about Kenmore is we are having a Phoenix moment. Since the value of Kenmore was associated with the retail space that was allocated and the retail store shut down, we are on our path up.

So what you're talking is an exponential ramp-up and I'll give you an example. Last year, even if your life depended on it around this time frame, you couldn't find a store where you could walk in and walk out with a Kenmore product. 

Today, Kenmore products are available in over 6, 000 locations, including all Targets. You can go into Canada and you can walk out with a Kenmore product from Canadian Tire, for example. The point that I'm trying to highlight here is that we had the advantage of having gone down and coming back up. We have no choice. It's a burning platform situation.

The rate at which we moved was much, much faster than our peers, which is number one. Second, we have an asset-light model. A phenomenally asset-light model. And that helped us with our agility. The third thing was because of the asset-light model, we were able to establish relationships with manufacturing partners from different parts of the world and re-architect our supply chain to the most optimum level, optimizing for quality and speed, but most importantly, product differentiation. 

If we have to get a product onto the shelf, that shelf was never empty. There was someone else's product on the shelf. If we can displace other brands on the shelf and get our products in 6, 000 locations. It's a testament to three things.

One, adding differentiated value to making sure that the product has a differentiated feature set. Three, from a retailer perspective, they are incentivized. in a much better way to have our product versus someone else's product.

And only then you can displace. And if you have to displace other brands from the shelf, that set date for retail happens five months, six months, and sometimes almost a year before. So we basically worked with the speed that is needed to effectuate a change in a very, very short period because we were asset-light.

We were going through the Phoenix moment. We culturally changed the way we operate, both internally and rebuilt our supply chain. And all this came together for us. 

Jeanne Gray: So that's a phenomenal transition that you just described. Does it begin with you evangelizing the vision and then selecting the troops who are going to work devotedly to that vision?

Sri Solur: Yes. You know, I can say... I have to give a lot of credit, the majority of the credit, to my team for trusting me and working together with a different set of rules. And the team that I have are veteran operators in the world of appliances. And Jeanne, I have to say this. I didn't have to let go of anyone. Not one in this day and age, we continue to hire.

And there are people in the company, my directs, who have worked at Sears and have gone through this bankruptcy, now a part of Transform Co, and they've been here for 45 plus years, some of them. I will put them against any startup founder in Silicon Valley. They have the mindset to work hard, work fast, and be open to change. That's what has yielded the amazing outcome so far. 

Jeanne Gray: So how did you, at the very outset, begin to communicate, and that's why I use the word evangelize, is you had to get out of the gate, and you had to take those first steps and... communicate well to an existing organization. You've achieved adaptability. How often did you meet with your lieutenants? Did you choose specific messaging that you felt had to be disseminated and then pushed down through the hierarchy of the company? 

Sri Solur: There are two things that I want to highlight here.

One is the messaging that you ask for. Two is the associated actions. So I'm going to give you both examples. The first thing that I did was drive transparency and accountability into the system and bear with me as I explain this. From day one, every Friday. I meet with the chairman of the company.

I declare what our team is going to do, what I am going to do in that meeting. But most importantly, I start with what I am going to do and I make sure that my team clearly understands when I say my team, it's the whole company. I'm not just saying my directs, the whole company has visibility. Into what my goals, both outputs, and outcomes are for the week.

And I requested my team to do the same. For the first 20 25 weeks, Jeanne, it was awfully painful. Think about having a board meeting every week.  But now, it is second nature. Everyone works on weekly sprints. Really, really, really important. The second cultural change is this about the calendar versus the stopwatch framework.

When people say, Hey, I have a meeting tomorrow afternoon. , I'm like the first few times I would say, why not today? And now it's gotten into the system. They basically ask that question themselves and say, Hey, you know what? This request came in at this point in time. It's been eight hours since. Let's see if we can deliver progress.

And I do that. And my team basically does that. The third thing that I want to highlight is empathy. Extraordinary levels of empathy. As you're going through cultural change, you want to show who you really are to members of your team. My team knows me, my family, and I literally I have given every member of my organization, they have my phone number if they want.

And they text, they call, and if I'm driving with my son, I openly say, Hey Susan, Bobby, say hi to Arya. And this is just about being human. And most importantly, I make sure that the slogan health and family first is always respected, always.

And I'm also a big believer that people can be sincere to their work. If they are sincere to their time off. And I respected that.

That's really, really important. And recognizing that there are many people who might be intimidated by the cultural change about their ability to succeed. You know what you do in that scenario? You would say, Hey, you know what? Let me sit with you. Let me help you accomplish your goals. So literally rolling up your sleeve, sitting with a member of your team and say, okay, you're trying to put a retail strategy in place.

Let us be part thought partners. Let's put this on the board so that you are deeply vested in making sure that members of your team succeed. Look, it's very hard to scale that, but in the initial 20-25 weeks, Spending time with the members of your team and not be the head of the organization, but be the legs of the organization, if you will, is really, really important.

Jeanne Gray: Well, what you're describing is leadership and it is an enormous part of being people looking up to you, but also the people that you're trying to convert to your vision. They're at a level where they're embracing you at the same time. And it takes a lot of energy, consistent energy to get to that point. And you were saying 25 weeks.

Over and over and over again until sort of this phoenix occurs and the heavy lifting is behind you and you're now looking forward. Is that a fair summary? 

Sri Solur: Yeah, look. There is no elevator to success, only a staircase. There is only a staircase. You have to put in the effort you have to model the way you have to inspire, enable and encourage and balance that with challenging.

And look at the outcomes last year at this time, we literally from a wholesale perspective, wholesale business perspective. We had zero supply now I'm like close to around eight or nine very innovative OEMs supplying products for us. 

Last year, if your life depended on it, you couldn't find a Kenmore product in store in non Sears and hometown stores. Today, it's in close to 6, 000 locations. You know, we are relaunching Kenmore in Canada. For five years, there was no Kenmore in Canada.

And, on top of all that, We have imbued innovation with whole home electrification, energy management, decarbonization. I've just been talking about Kenmore. Let me give you an example, Jeanne, DieHard with EV chargers. You're going to see commercial and consumer EV chargers with the DieHard brand name.

Jeanne Gray: So I, I don't know if you can describe it, but how innovation emerges. That's why I was pursuing with you the whole question of product engineering, because you had to go out and source new OEMs. who you felt could step up or who were already involved in the digital transformation. So, when you're talking about DieHard, I mean each product had to, with loving hands, be nurtured into a more innovative approach to compete in today's marketplace.

Sri Solur: Yeah. That's a lot. But it's very simple. Everything starts with the vision, the mission, and everything will fall into place. We said Kenmore was equivalent to Live More. We said Kenmore is affordable innovation. And we said we were going to deliver clean air, clean water, our ability to efficiently cook our food, dry our clothes.

Power our cars, live our lives. But most importantly, as we are doing it, we said we were going to contribute back to society, the country, and the world. And we are doing this in a very interesting way to give you an example. In the last six months for our clean air, we launched air purifiers that have been doing phenomenally well connected air purifiers.

After a very long time, you're seeing very energy-efficient cooking ranges being delivered by Kenmore. Ah, we spoke about differentiated feature sets. The new Kenmore Rangers, for example, Jeanne comes with air frying. That's built-in. We said, look, we're going to add one or two features that are like standard differentiated with diehard. We said, we'll ride the secular trend of EV chargers, the adoption of electric vehicles. We signed relationships with some amazing companies playing in this space, to give you an example, SPAN, you know, for the digital electrical panel, you will see relationships and announcements where we can work with HVAC providers.

And as you know, 42 percent of emissions come from energy consumption in and around the home. 

Jeanne Gray: So now you're, you're looking to the future. You're taking the American consumer with you and now, and also I know the Canadian consumer. So when consumers go into a store and you've got 6, 000 stores and it's no longer just the captive retail within Sears, all of these features and vision, how is that communicated at the location? Are the salespeople better educated or they're also going through their own arc of being able to demo or to explain these, these great advantages of these new products?

Sri Solur: Jeanne, you hit the nail on the head. Transformation cannot happen in isolation, just in supply chain and in the culture of the company.

You also have to take the consumer and the partners through the journey. So that's a very, very insightful question. And what we did. And thankfully, we have other assets that are working in our favor. One of the biggest assets comes from our sister company, which is called Sears Home Services. Jeanne, Sears Home Services has technicians, 2500 to 3000 technicians who enter people's homes 80, 000 times a week, 80, 000 times a week. So think about it. 

Jeanne Gray: You have a private army 

Sri Solur: There you go. 80, 000 times a week. And when people, when that happens, they're not trying to sell. They are trying to educate. They are called in because an appliance is not working.

And as they take care of the repairs. They can talk about the newer appliances that are more energy efficient. And wait a minute, it doesn't end there. We know the address of the homes that we are going into. We know how much Inflation Reduction Act rebates are potentially applicable to that home based on the household income of the home.

And, if you can get 14, 000 worth of rebates, that's equivalent to 14, 000 worth of appliances that are applicable for the rebate and the installation of those appliances. And in many cases, it can be free. Jeanne, tell me, why would someone say no to free on one side? On the other side, what is really, really interesting is we are able to communicate about the government subsidies and rebates directly to the consumer.

Jeanne Gray: That's a great advantage you have in making this transformation. 

Sri Solur: So that is just one proof point of execution. Where we have the ability to communicate with the customer at the point of thirst. And when I talk about the point of thirst, You know, I bring it because when I'm not working, I'm also a runner.

And Gatorade talks about being available at the point of thirst. And when an appliance is not working, and you're able to communicate this, I think you are addressing the problem at the point of thirst, and that's one of the most effective ways in which we are looking to communicate our energy story, our decarbonization story, the electrification story to our consumers.

Jeanne Gray: Well, explain a little bit more about the whole part of decarbonization, because this is appearing in popular language now, but how does each company or manufacturer integrate decarbonization into their plan? 

Sri Solur: I'll give you two examples. Just in the interest of time. What we are looking to do is very simple.

Jeanne, as you know, the grid basically gets loaded. On a very hot day on a very cold day. The baseline energy is clean energy in terms of energy generation. But when lot of people start to use air conditioners at the same time, or use all their appliances at the same time, the energy generation company has to fire up fossil fuel based generators to take care of the surge.

And if they are not able to, there are rolling blackouts that happen. Now, if you have the ability to basically manage The amperage requirement within the home during times of surge, you can basically help the electric generation company not to fire up those fossil fuel based generators. And the way to do that is not too hard.

You have to build up resilience within the home and the way to build up resilience within the home is basically you can have either solar, you can have a battery, you can have a digital panel, wherein you can load balance between the water heater and EV charging or you can cut off the EV charging and focus on your air conditioning at that point in time and the ability to make that happen.

You need to have an inside out approach, have the right kind of appliances and a right kind of control system that can work with the grid. So that's one example. So you, you will see a lot, a lot of our products that have the ability to dance with the grid. The second one is just migration from furnace-based heating and cooling to heat pump based heating and cooling.

You will see Kenmore products doing that. HVACs, for example, moving from traditional water heaters to heat pump based water heaters, moving from fossil fuel based cooktops to induction cooktops, going from gas dryers to heat pump based dryers. You have the ability to effectuate a change. So I've given you two examples, outside in and inside out.

And we are committed to this transformation, not just within the company, but also enable a transformation with clean tech. Products and solutions both inside and working with the grid on the outside. And at the end of the day, energy security is a bipartisan agenda in the Congress. And what we are doing here is not just doing good for the consumer. When we say doing good for the consumer, it's because of the Inflation Reduction Act. You don't have to shell out so much money. So you save money for them. So, which is really good. You basically are working to make sure that the grid is balanced, which is amazing thing for our society.

You are talking about energy security for the country. So it's a win-win win across the board. And that's why we say Kenmore equals Live More when it comes to electrification, decarbonization, clean air, clean water, clean food, and, and that's the goal. 

Jeanne Gray: And what you just said, that is the Kenmore brand for the future?

Sri Solur: Yeah, it's about enabling day to day consumers to live more. Kenmore equals to Live More.

Jeanne Gray: What you're saying is that the product lines that were existing are old and had no place in the future and competitors would naturally seize opportunities to displace Kenmore and you are now positioned to lead.

Sri Solur: But Jeanne, I have to say this. I happen to be in the position of leadership to help effectuate the change. I am sure there are many people who would have accomplished and potentially more. And I don't want to say it is only because of me, but I can tell you this, there is a team behind every leader on that team.

And I can tell you 95 percent of the team is the team that's been with Sears. And then some of them, have been in the company for 45 years. So I attribute our success today to the team that's worked relentlessly week after week. And I just want to highlight the goals last year at this point in time, literally zero supply to like eight, nine.

We'll be pushing to close to around 10 innovative, very well known, amazing OEMs rallying behind us. Kenmore products not being available anywhere to over 6,000 locations, relaunching in Canada after five years and launching the whole home electrification business, both outside in and inside out, and having diehard branded EV chargers.

Smart energy management devices across the board and some of the appliances that you're seeing it's in the marketplace for the first time in three years. So just looking back it's a lot of pride associated with teamwork and so I don't think I should be taking the credit. I think it's the team and we work together to make this happen.

Jeanne Gray: So where will Kenmore be in five years? What's your five year vision for the company? 

Sri Solur: Jeanne, Kenmore is in 42 million homes.

And Kenmore was relevant to Baby Boomers, maybe Gen Xers. And we've already seen a transformation. Where Gen Z's look at Kenmore and they're buying Kenmore and they say it reminds them of their grandmother's cooking. It's a very interesting phenomenon. My goal is to make sure that Kenmore is in every American household.

Jeanne Gray: Walking into a Sears store and you saw that name, you associated it with quality. And now, not only are you presenting quality, but you're presenting innovation at a time when it's, it's almost mandatory to be competitive, you have to embrace innovation as well.

Jeanne Gray: Sri, thank you so much for your time and for giving our listeners an inside view of transforming a major retail brand and the important role that company culture had in your success.

Sri Solur: thank you for having me, Jean. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Jeanne Gray: You have been listening to the podcast series, Experienced Voices. To hear more and subscribe, visit Americanentrepreneurship. com/podcast, where you will also find a form for listener feedback.