“What we helped him with in the early days was really logistics. It’s like in the Army. You can move troops all over the world, but unless you have the capacity to supply them with ammunition and food, there’s no sense putting them out there. Sam understood that. He knew that he was already in what the trade calls an ‘absentee ownership’ situation. That just means you’re putting your stores out where you, as management, aren’t. If he wanted to grow he had to learn to control it. So to service these stores you’ve got to have timely information: How much merchandise is in the store? What is it?
...more
