INTERBASE 1st issue Customize your own Base!
Customer award And also a special event!
Growing up Looking back and what’s next
Run it up Breathe clean Win a trip to India!
Our new targets
MY FEET MY BASE
THISISSUE 04
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05 09 08 Customer award 04 Growing up 05 Customize your Base 09 We’re going Clean 06 Marketing
Dear employees In January we met for the first time. Since then there were some big chances. Not everyone was pleased with our changes, but we believed it was the best thing to do at that moment. I can happily announce that we did well. Better than anyone could ever expect. Not only our profit went up, also our customers say we have good quality shoes. You find us people-oriented. Exactly all what we wanted for this company. What did we exactly do?
The biggest chances are our market share. All of our shoes have an market share above the 23%. This also means that there is demand for our shoes and that is resulting in more sales. Despite the economical crisis the demand for our shoes is almost doubled. Our profit is invested in better work circumstances for you, our emplyees. Also the quality checks of the shoes are better. Not only we thought about you but also about the company, the loan we had is paid. Financially we are very strong. Especially if you compare it to our competitors, here in England. We also investigate a lot: the market, employee satisfaction, competitors prices and local norms and values. These helped us to understand our customers, our employees and our competitors, which made it possible for us to help you and our customers better.
What’s next?
Because of our good quality checks, done by you, the customer experiences our shoe better then they expect when they bought it. In some cases they give it s better rate than it really is. That means our shoes are from a good quality and believable four our customers. And that they will buy Base shoes again. That will result in more sales and that will result in more investing in our shoes, our company and you, our employees. In even better working circumstances and education possibilities. So that you can grow in a safe and healthy environment within this company. Not only you provide from our profit, also our customers. There can be done more research for innovation and improvement of our business processes.
Don’t forget this
As you know our focus is on tennis and leisure shoes. Off course you didn’t miss our campaign with Andy Murray, one of the best tennisplayers from England and the world. And I hope you didn’t miss the message that you can buy tickets for Rolland Garros with 60% discount. You only have to fill in this discountcode: base2013. I hope you will enjoy watching him and be proud to see him on the shoes you probably made with your own hands. See you soon at the beginning of the next year, Pamela van Klaveren Financial Director
Design your own shoes! By Cindy de Gilder
Always wanted to design your own athletic shoes? Now you can! We’re holding a “design your own shoe” contest and every one of you can participate. You can design athletic shoes that suit your style. Be creative! You can only enter one design so make it your best one. There is a link on the home page of the intranet that leads to the shoe design program. You can enter till the 25th June. After that everyone can vote on their favourite shoes till the 9th July. A week later it will be announced on the intranet who have won the contest. The athletic shoes with the most votes will be created and be in stores by the end of November. Your shoes will be limited edition
and we will offer them for a couple of months. Can you imagine? Your shoes in our stores! And that’s not all. You will also win your own creation and you can give away five pairs to your friends or relatives! And as long as your shoes are available, you and your design will also be on posters in stores and on the website.
the sporty types will wear our shoes, also people who wear flashy athletic shoes every day because they look great will wear our shoes. Also, because the shoes are limited edition they will sell even better because of the limited edition mania. And most people don’t like meeting someone who wears the exact same shoes so because they are limited edition, less people have the same shoes which make them more unique. Every now and then this “design your own shoe” contest will return to create more limited edition athletic shoes and you can participate every single time.
So design completely new athletic shoes or take an existing model and add your personal touch. Think about models, colors, fabrics, laces, soles and so on. How about black high top shoes made of leather with crazy neon dots, laces and sole? Or maybe navy blue low profile shoes made of canvas with a black tongue, black leather stripes, white laces and We have decided to hold a baby blue sole? How about this “design your own shoe” pink high top shoes with black contest because besides stitches, yellow laces and our Base-ic athletic shoes, a neon yellow sole? Maybe we want to offer some more you like red skate shoes with flashy but still durable athle- black straps and a white sole? tic shoes for everyday wear. You’re free to do whatever you This way we will gain more want. Design shoes that suit customers and make more your style. Be creative and get sales because not only started!
Marketing By Claudia de Vries
The last few weeks we saw the sales for our running shoe go down. This is why we are making some changes in our marketing. The budget for the marketing is going up, especially for the running shoe. We are also changing the way we market our shoes. Because of the market share we have on the market for the tennis shoe, we are going to make some changes there as well. We have decided we wanted to do some demonstrations with our shoes. This also means we need the help of some of you to organize these demonstrations. We know you all already work very hard, but because of these new activities we will check who can help us realize our plans. Of course if there is someone who is interested and thinks he or she can make some extra hours, we will be very grateful. As you all know we have got a sponsorship with Andy Murray. The Grand Slam Roland Garros was the first time he would play in our tennis shoes. Some of you may have seen it, you may have not, but he did not that great during this tournament. He got injured in the first round. So badly he couldn’t go through with the match. We of course send him our best wishes and we hope he will recover quickly. As we explained before we are going to do some more marketing for the running shoes. Now our company is going as well as we hoped, we thought it would be a good idea to get another sponsorship, but this time for the running shoes. To involve you in this new project, we ask you to think about a person we could ask for this sponsorship. We wanted to make it something like a competition. We will set the deadline two weeks from today. From all the ideas that come in, we will choose a top three from the ones we think are a good match for us. We will present the top three before the big boss and she will choose a winner. For the winner we got a special surprise, so do your best and be the creative people we know you are!
Award
By Mandy Versteeg
Yes! Base is still going strong! Because of the effort of each and every individual within our company, Base has won The Customer Excellence Award 2013! Of course, we will be celebrating this wonderful milestone in our career. Apart from the cake we are serving in our cafeteria this week, we are also thrilled to let you know that every one of you will receive a coupon to get your own pair of Base shoes. Enjoy! We have won this award due to the changes we put into practice in our communication towards our customers. While the customers at first only could contact us through phone or mail, they can now reach us through Twitter and Facebook as well! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter @BaseShoes! We also paid more attention in training courses on taking measures of clients their feet for our shoes, to serve our customers as best as possible! Now everyone can walk with the perfect fit shoes of Base, no matter what sport they practice. Another subject of the training courses was customer service, and following the after-sales and customer relations. We don’t only want our customers to buy “a pair of shoes”, we want them to purchase an experience, which they want to repeat when they want another pair of Base shoes. That is why we all deserved this fantastic award!
Family Matters
In the past few weeks, the main subject of the coffee break small talks was the GSCE examinations of our children. How tired they were, or how they just did not pay that much attention to their finals as much as we would want them to. This week, we will know whether they have passed or not...
Special Event: BASEDAY
We, the management team of Base, also felt this tension of the GSCEs. Therefore, we would like to announce our new, special family-event on July 1st: BASEDAY! There will be a clown, a climbing wall and a rollercoaster. Bring your children, parents, brothers, sisters, neighbours, everyone is free to join! Entrance is free. We will also be handing out presents to the students who passed their finals. It will be a fantastic day!
Birthdays
This month, three of our fellow colleagues will be celebrating their birthday. We wish you all the very best and have a wonderful happy, healthy birthday and many more to come! June 18th: Sanne Smit June 21st: Henk Golde June 23rd: Melissa Dolk June 23rd: Frits Hoppe
WIN a trip to india
By Rozemarijn Thys
LET’S ‘BREATHE CLEAN’
The past few periods we have made a huge progress with Base: we have grown from a young, new company to successful competitor for other shoe companies. Base is growing, all thanks to your hard work! To keep up the good work, we hired a strategy consultant to examine the strengths and weaknesses of Base, so we can improve our business even more, together. Main result? Let’s ‘Breathe Clean’!
company, from chairs to desks, 100% fair trade. Love your desk right now? Don’t worry! You will love your new desk even more! They are made out of the finest wood and are all made by hand. All by people who get paid enough to feed themselves and their family. The new resources will come to you in the next two weeks. Can’t wait until you see them? You can have a look at the intranet to see what everything looks like and which resources will be replaced.
As you all know, we are already associated with the ‘Clean Clothes Campagne’. All of our products are fair-trade, which means the working environment of the factories are good, the employees are being paid well and the working hours are like ours: from 9 to 5. The strategy consultant found out that we are the only shoe company in Great Britain who provides ‘Clean Shoes’ and we’re proud of that! Our plan is to continue our strategy and maintain working 100% fairtrade. In a survey, we have asked you what yóú think we need to do to be even ‘cleaner’ than we already are. We’re very grateful for all the ideas you gave us and we’re delighted to inform you that some of the ideas will be taken into action!
Win a trip to India (contest) In the same survey we have noticed a lot of you want to examine the circumstances of the employees yourself. And guess what: you have got the change right now! We’re offering you the change to go on a journey to India for one week to look around in our factories over there. But that’s not all: you’re staying in an all-inclusive 5* hotel and you can take someone with you. The only thing you have to do is this:
New resources In the survey we found out that a lot of you think it important that not only our shoes but also are resources are fair trade. So we have decided to make every single item in our
- Show us how ‘Clean’ you are (By essay, photographs or a short movie: it’s up to you!) - Examples: you only have fair-trade goods / you always buy your clothes second hand / you donate money to a specific organization every month) The winner will be informed before the 12th of July 2013. Keep up the good work and let’s go Clean together!