New Staples retail boss takes it ‘easy'

Boston Globe

16 hours ago

In January, Warkentin became president of Staples' US retail operations. One of his first big moves as the top executive: launching a new campaign around the familiar fat red button, with billboards, store signs, and social media posts. (The button shows up as 'E.B.' on LinkedIn.) And yes, you can still buy buttons that say 'that was easy' for your office cubicle.
The Easy Button concept is in keeping with Staples founder
Tom Stemberg
's ethos around making life easier for customers, Warkentin says.
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'It wasn't just a marketing campaign,' Warkentin said. 'It was a commitment.'
The idea takes on new resonance now that the company has pivoted to focus more on services and less on traditional brick-and-mortar retail, particularly as consumers and small businesses are using less paper, once the lifeblood of a Staples store.
In that regard, Warkentin cited several growth areas such as same-day sign printing, TSA Precheck enrollment, tech support, and 'iPostal' digital mailboxes. Warkentin said he doesn't expect to significantly add to the company's network of 900-plus stores in the United States, but he does want to optimize the stores Staples already has.
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'What you hopefully are seeing is the evolution of a strategy playing out where we're moving more towards a service-based approach versus a product-based approach, which is where the whole 'Easy campaign' comes in,' Warkentin said. 'Leveraging something from the past and applying it to something that's new and more modern.'
For Mass. CEOs, competition is on the menu
The 'C' word seems to be everywhere you turn these days.
Case in point:
State Street
chief executive
Ron O'Hanley
and
Rapid7
chief executive
Corey Thomas
are hosting an unusual dinner meeting on Wednesday, and 'competitiveness' is on the menu. The meeting is unusual because O'Hanley and Thomas invited board chairs of local business associations as opposed to the associations' chief executives — other executives whose day jobs involve leading companies, not trade groups.
O'Hanley chairs the
Massachusetts Competitive Partnership
, and is the former chair of the
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce
's board, a role he handed off to Thomas a year ago.
In their invite, they write that the challenges to the state's economic competitiveness have never been greater. They cite headwinds facing leading industries, and existential threats posed to universities and hospitals. They point to high construction and housing costs, as well as taxes. And they express concerns about roads and public transit.
Their stated goal: to identify actions that local business leaders can take to address 'what is now a critical situation.'
The meeting follows a
Pioneer Institute
report in April, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data, showing that private sector employment in Massachusetts remains 0.74 percent lower than in January 2020 — the third-worst showing of any state. And on Thursday, the
Massachusetts Business Roundtable
released a report showing an increasing number of their members are hiring remote workers in other states to fill jobs.
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'Massachusetts has more going for it than it has challenges,' said
Citizens Bank
executive
Lisa Murray
, who plans to attend as chair of the Roundtable. 'We need to make sure we're telling that story, so we're focusing on and highlighting all the amazing things that happen here. . . . But we can't be naive and stick our head in the sand, and not address the issues that are as clear as day.'
For Boston Arts Academy, a big check from big fans
When Mayor
Michelle Wu
Josh Boger
and
Amy Boger
to step up.
The couple has supported the visual and performing arts high school for several years, ever since they received an inquisitive visit by some academy students to their Summer Street studio. Josh Boger is a scientist by training, and a former chief executive of biotech powerhouse Vertex Pharmaceuticals, while his wife is
a retired pediatrician. But now he's much more focused on photography, particularly underwater, and she's more focused on ceramics.
Boger said it was a no-brainer for the couple to donate that final $1 million, to make the match sought by the anonymous donor and bring the total amount raised by the
Boston Arts Academy Foundation
to $35.9 million — wrapping up the campaign. The couple had donated to BAA before, he said, but this is their largest single gift to the school. They were recognized by Wu at a reception at the Parkman House on Friday. (The gift will go to a scholarship fund, to support BAA graduates in college,
named after foundation chief executive
Denella Clark
.)
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He said he's impressed that admissions are not based on middle school grades, but instead on auditions and portfolios. He believes many students who are artistically inclined can go on to become great mathematicians and scientists; the pursuits of arts and of science are more similar than many people realize.
He probably gets as much out of the student visits as the kids do — if not more.
'It's the questions they ask, and I realize that they're seeing certain aspects [of my photography] for the first time,' Boger said. 'That makes me more interested in those aspects. . . . It reminds me to look at it more carefully.'
Wu sees mounting interest in office conversions
Interest continues to build in Mayor
Michelle Wu
's tax-
That's the message the mayor conveyed at an
Associated Industries of Massachusetts
meeting on Thursday, after AIM chief executive
Brooke Thomson
asked what her administration is doing to help address the region's housing shortage.
Wu touted her conversion program, which offers developers a 75-percent property tax break over 29 years. She noted projects totaling nearly 800 units are in the pipeline, soon to climb to around 1,000. The hope: bring more life to a downtown hurt by the rise of remote work, while creating more housing.
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Actual construction, though,
Wu rattled off several other city housing initiatives, and she fielded a separate question from Thomson about buttressing the city's competitiveness. She indicated that perhaps the most important draw for businesses is 'making sure Boston is a city where employees, where people, want to build their lives.'
There was little indication of how some of Wu's more progressive policies — increased requirements for affordable housing, for example, or climate-friendly construction — faces some resistance in the business community. A number of prominent executives have donated to Josh Kraft, her challenger in the fall election.
To introduce Wu at the AIM event,
M&T Bank
regional president
Grace Lee
talked about how Wu stood her ground before confrontational members of Congress in March, over immigration policies.
Wu hearkened back to that moment when Thomson asked about the mayor's controversial rollout of more bike lanes, a rollout that Kraft targeted
'When I was sitting in that congressional hearing room in D.C.,' Wu recalled, 'and the questions were coming fast and furious and trying to, you know, call me names, and this and that, I quickly realized, . . . none of these congressional Republicans have been in a bike lane meeting in the city of Boston.'
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Jon Chesto can be reached at