- Welcome to The Shiproom,
where we learn from tech leaders
at some of the world's most successful companies.
I'm Brad Anderson.
I'm the Vice President, Microsoft 365.
Hey, welcome to The Shiproom!
Today, I'm talking with the Senior Vice President
and CIO of Crocs, Mike Feliton.
- Thanks for having me here today, Brad.
- Now, Mike
Since 2002, there have been 600 million pairs of Crocs
sold in over 90 countries,
and with the company continuing to expand its product line
during a point in time when the entire workforce
has been operating remotely,
you have a really important job to do now.
What was the biggest change that your company had to make,
and how did the technology team step in to help?
- From a technology perspective,
we were pretty much ahead of the curve,
and we were already well down the path
of putting in collaboration tools
that would enhance the way we work as a business.
We jumped on the Teams bandwagon early on.
The real problems that we had to deal with
were from a cultural perspective,
and that had to deal with things like
where is my phone set?
You mean I have to take all my calls from this device?
And just those basic things
of changing the way we work.
When we were pushed out into the workforce
forced this change upon the business,
and overnight,
everybody started to embrace Microsoft Teams
and the platform as a whole.
So the transition, from a technology perspective,
was really good!
Where we struggled was more on the social perspective
and social dynamics.
So, I wouldn't necessarily say
technology was a major concern for us.
We were able to make the shift fairly quickly.
It was that social and human element
of how do we keep that connection,
and how do we keep the culture of Crocs alive
as we transition into this new world?
- So Mike, I'm really sorry.
It looks like I'm double booked.
Do you mind if I just bring this call in really quick?
- Sure!
Hey, this is Brad.
You're on The Shiproom with Mike. Who's this?
- Nigel Forkhat, the Mayor of Redmond!
- Did you say the Mayor of Redmond?
- That's right!
The pride of the southwest coast, Redmond Australia.
- I think I was confusing it when I accepted this meeting.
What can I do for you?
- Well Brad,
we're having a bit of a croc problem at the moment.
- No, Mike's from the company, Crocs.
Lemme cut you off right there.
- Oh, I know!
We have so many of your shoes down here,
We can't keep them straight!
And we also have so many of these bitey little monsters,
that we can't keep track of them either.
So I'm gonna give you a list of names,
and you're gonna tell me if it's the name of a foot Croc,
or a bitin' croc!
- A foot Croc or a bite croc? Okay.
- Number one. Swiftwater!
- That would be a shoe.
- Orinoco!
- That would be a crocodile.
- Caiman.
- That would be an animal.
That would be the crocodile.
- Freshwater?
- That would be a shoe!
- Niloticus!
- Crocodile.
- Freesail.
- A foot Croc.
- Right! Wow, this is brilliant, mate!
So, before I go sort this out
with the other five residents of our town,
Brandon, Lucy, Sarah, other Brandon, and Brian,
I have one last question!
As you've been driving modernization,
you've improved, not just the customer experience,
but also the employee experience.
What impact have you seen from modernizing the tools
you put in the hands of the people working
in both your main office and your retail location?
- Before we started rolling out a lot of tools,
we embraced the people in the business
to make sure that the hardware
and the way they engage with the tools
is something that they actually would enjoy.
So a perfect simple example would be
related to the headsets that we've rolled out for everyone.
And as opposed to just deploying one set
to all of our employees,
we actually had a day
where we sat out in front of the lunch room,
we brought in the four different options,
and we let everybody pick what they wanted,
and what we found was
there was an even spread across the four different options.
If we had gone down the path of just pushing one,
we would have upset 75% of the team.
And what you find
is that people start using their technology more.
So, if they have something that they enjoy using,
you're gonna get much more engagement
in the tools that you put out there.
- And with the employee engagement,
what you're ultimately talking about
is increased productivity, increased loyalty,
increased employee sentiment.
Yeah, and there's just so much data out there.
There's so much research that says
when the employees feel valued,
when they feel like they're working
for a forward-looking organization,
the way that they service the customer
is just substantially higher.
- One of the things that always comes up is,
do I feel like my voice is heard
and do I know what's going on in the business?
And one of the things that COVID really pushed
is a connection to our remote facilities,
and be it someone in a retail store
or my teams that are in Europe and Asia,
we can meet directly
and have these face-to-face conversations,
where in the past,
it all had to be scheduled with a visit.
The technologies existing in teams
has really helped us bridge that gap.
We've done things like over the past three months,
we've already launched a whole line remotely.
We've had our both internal and external sales meetings
without anybody traveling, using Teams live,
and those are things
that we would have never ever considered,
but have been extremely successful and received accolades
from both internal and external people.
And just the engagement scores alone on communication
were up 14 basis points, to where we were just a year ago.
The only thing I can attribute to that
is having the ability to connect with people
in remote for parts of the world.
And really, the only that has changed
in my communication with my teams,
is being able to engage everybody global.
- In addition to being a Senior Technology Executive,
you're also an elite athlete.
You've rowed in college
and you were a national champion in 1992, is that right?
- 1993, yes.
- Now, rowing has been a big part of the Olympics,
all the way back to the start of the modern games in 1896,
but not every other event has been so lucky.
In fact, until the 1940s,
there was an artistic segment at the summer Olympics.
Now, I'm gonna read you a few of these past events.
Tell me, is this a real gold medal
or is it a made up sport.
Literature.
- That can't be
a real gold medal.
- Fight choreography.
- No?
- Interpretive dance.
- No.
- Epic poetry.
- No.
- All right, landscape design.
- Landscape design? No.
- Finger painting!
- No.
- Compositions for a choir.
- I'm gonna say yes, based on
some of the other ones.
- And finally, medallion design.
Winning a medal for designing the medal.
- That can't be one.
You know what's funny about the rowing, too?
I've recently got back on my rowing machine.
I saw something that I can plug my iPhone into it
so it can record my scores,
and then, all of a sudden,
I started getting messages through LinkedIn and Facebook
from people I've rowed with in the past,
asking how I got so slow.
- Right now, your company's doing a lot
to support healthcare workers and first responders.
Tell me about this program
and how people watching this can support it.
- I have to be honest,
this is one of the things
that makes me most proud to be a member of the Crocs family.
Back at the onset of this pandemic,
we started taking a look at what we can do to get involved.
It was so overwhelming for everybody
on such a personal level
that we just couldn't stand by.
It started with our senior leadership.
Let's give away 10,000 pair a day.
We really just jumped in as an entire organization,
and within a week, we pulled together the technology,
we pulled together the medium for people
to get in line and queue up,
and there were a lot of professionals
who really put their hearts and souls
into making sure that we could find a way
to get 10,000 pair a day out to those frontline workers,
which I believe had a full retail value
of somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 million
in Crocs donated over that period of time.
At the end, it was somewhere in the neighborhood
of 860,000 pairs globally given away.
- What a great program.
I love how fast the leadership team acted,
you know, to go from idea, you know, within a week,
be able to start moving forward on it.
I think that just shows the agility
of what the overall organization is able to do.
That's great.
All right, now, while we've been talking,
our very own Shiproom AI
has been analyzing our conversation,
and it's come up with the 12 most relevant questions,
based upon our discussion.
We call this The Database Dozen.
What's your opinion of wearing socks with Crocs?
Yes or double yes?
- Yes.
- Will we ever see a Croc made of actual crocodile?
- No.
- If the Titanic cargo hold was full of Crocs,
would it still be afloat?
- Yes.
- Are wooden clogs ever gonna make a comeback?
- Even if they did, we have 'em beat on comfort.
- Do you even remember how to tie shoes at this point?
(Mike laughs)
What should we name the first city on the moon?
Oh, we just lost him.
There we go, I heard it.
- Okay.
- Are you interested into branching Crocs into dogs?
Think about it. These customers have twice as many feet!
Have you ever run so fast
that the holes in your Crocs whistle?
How many pair of Crocs do you own?
- It's a little north of a hundred.
I'm sporting the special edition Luke Combs from last year,
and my favorite comes with a bottle opener.
- Awesome.
- For when you need to have
that beverage.
- Here are the pair that I have.
I have my Seahawks Crocs.
- I love it.
Can you guys hear me?
- Hey, thanks for hanging out with us on The Shiproom.
Mike, it's been great having you here.
Before we go, let's make sure everyone understands
where they can learn more about you or about Crocs.
- Got to Crocs.com,
and I look forward to seeing them on your feet.
- Thanks again, Mike.
Thanks everyone for watching.
This is Brad from The Shiproom,
we'll see you next time
- In both your main office and your retail locations.
(sips) Nothing's in here.
I drank it all.