Tapping Into Areas Talent Pool a Benefit For All Companies (OPINION)

Your mental image of a person who works in retail may be the sales associate in the store aisles or behind a cash register, or possibly the executive in a corporate office.

That’s not me. My years of work in retail have included no hours in the aisles, no use of a cash register and no forays into the stockroom. But my unusual journey with retail has given me some interesting insights into what is arguably the fastest-evolving industry in the world.

I grew up in my family’s publishing company which sold to — you guessed it — Wal-Mart Stores Inc.  I remember the meetings with the buyers as I progressed through different responsibilities with Clapper Communications and have never forgotten the overwhelming feelings of stress that our team felt personally, or the look of stress on my fellow suppliers waiting for their meetings. Even then, many years ago, I wanted to find a way to help relieve that stress by helping them find solutions to their challenges.

We later sold the company, and I truly experienced the entrepreneurial and innovative side of retail by developing a new product, raising the capital to produce a video game before selling it in 2010. That is when life stepped in and redirected my focus.

My wife works for a supplier to Walmart, and it was her turn to make the trek to Bentonville for the obligatory 18- to 24-month tour. For the first time, I was a trailing spouse, trying to decide what I wanted to do next.

What I found was an entrepreneur’s dream: smart people with strong business experience, who were intimately connected with retail, whether from the retailer side or the suppliers’ side.

Walking down the street, shopping in the local stores, or sitting at the coffee shop, the chances were high that most of the people sitting around me were involved in some sort of retail. As a lifelong learner, my total environment was now better than the best MBA course to learn the realities of buying, selling and distributing products with the world’s largest retailer, whether as a global brand or a small, one-product company.

Since moving here five years ago, my family has put down strong roots in Northwest Arkansas. We have grown from a family of two to a family of four, and my goal of helping suppliers has become a reality with my becoming chairman and CEO of 8th & Walton. This role has come with an obligation to study retail further and surround myself with experts from both the retailer and supplier sides of the business — again, they are abundant in our area. Their feedback has helped us develop into a larger, more purposeful company. Through this learning, we have transformed our company’s mission to help suppliers be better partners to Walmart and Sam’s Club.

Many great initiatives are building on the retail-focused entrepreneurial opportunities in Northwest Arkansas — Jeff Amerine’s Mentor Camp, Carol Reeve’s MBA business plan teams, and the Northwest Arkansas Angel Association — to name a few. For these innovators and entrepreneurs to fully thrive in our amazing business environment, the numerous large companies play a key role, and one that potentially benefits them greatly, too.

If the Fortune 500 companies present here dedicated a small portion of their time to engaging these new companies, the outcome for all would be significant. Certainly, the startups would benefit from the wisdom, insight and feedback, not to mention the possibility of starting with strong clients. But the large companies would also benefit from the innovation, agility and speed that these startups foster.

As owner of a growing business that serves the many large companies in our area, I have seen firsthand how all parties benefit from working together. Collaboration between the new and established companies in Northwest Arkansas will require communication, courage and vision. The rewards for connecting these groups will be sustained economic growth for Northwest Arkansas for decades to come. 

Jeff Clapper is chairman and CEO of 8th & Walton in Bentonville, a supplier development company that has helped hundreds of organizations in their efforts to be better suppliers to the world’s largest retailer. He can be reached at 479-715-6700, or at [email protected].