Brown Shoe cuts costs and jobs
Brown Shoe Company, Inc. has announced that it will introduce a number of cost-saving initiatives as a result of the current economic climate.
Its new initiatives, which are expected to yield annual savings in the range of $28-$31 million, will include changes in compensation structure, rationalisation of operating expenses and workforce reduction. The company has also reduced its planned capital expenditures for the 2008 to 2011 period by an additional $35 million, bringing total planned capital expenditure reductions to $107 million for this period.
The workforce reduction programme is expected to affect 12-14% of its domestic workforce in business areas across the enterprise, excluding stores and distribution centres.
"These are essential actions that we are taking to proactively address the uncertainty that remains in the marketplace and we remain focused on identifying additional opportunities to reduce expenses without impacting investments in key strategic growth opportunities,” says Brown Shoe chairman and CEO, Ron Fromm. “Reducing our workforce is a necessary measure to appropriately realign our cost structure to sales expectations. It is the right thing to do for our business and we are committed to implementing it in the right way for our business and our people, who have made tremendous contributions to our company's culture and successes."
