About Simmons
The Simmons Bedding Company is one of the main mattress manufacturer headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. In addition to 18 manufacturing facilities in the United States, the company branches its products internationally. According to Furniture Today Magazine, Simmons ranked in third place among U.S. mattress manufacturers, with a 15.7 percent market share in year 2011(Bartz, 2013).
The company was founded in 1870 by Zalmon Gilbert Simmons as a family business. The innovation had always become a most important driving force in the history of Simmons business. In the first years, they had manufactured the first mass-produce woven wire mattresses and they were able to make mattresses widely affordable with the introduction of spiral
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Eitel had a track record of turning companies around. On the other hand, Eitel had all of his experience in the floor-covering business and he had no bedding industry involvement. Right after taking over the company, he had launched $9 million ad campaign on a redesigned version of Beauty rest. The Simmons received an immediate % 25 increase in sales. In addition to the great success in sales, he spent a lot of time and resources to change the organizational structure at Simmons in his first months at Simmons. He also worked on blending new set of core values that reflecting his philosophy of leadership to Simmons culture. Eitel believed that the leaders of today must care about their teams because this century’s people want happiness and meaning in their lives more than ever before (Furniture Today, …show more content…
He paid $3.8 million severance pay to reorganize the management team. He brought Hellyer , long term veteran, as president and received a lot of feedback from him regarding how the company managed in years. He heavily depended on Hellyer’s input to redevelop the firm’s structure. He dressed khaki pants and polo shirt, extremely casual to company management style, to join his first meeting with top executives. In his first three months, he visited all facilities and plants to collect data. The new management team aimed to unify the practices in all facilities. His direction was “being 18 of one instead of one of 18”. They eliminated plant general manager position and formed plant leadership teams that they asked them to work together. Two of third old managers left the company because of this