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Kevin Rosen and Junior's Cheesecakes Story: This story allows us to gain some insight into the leadership style of Kevin Rosen at the helm of this third generation family business.
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The Kevin Rosen Story: This story allows us to gain some insight into the leadership style of Kevin Rosen at the helm of this third generation family business.
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Junior’s, The World’s Most Fabulous Cheesecake, is a household name in New York City. For over 50 years, Junior’s has been selling its desserts from its flagship store in downtown Brooklyn, and recently opened a second location in Grand Central Station.
Earlier this month, Junior’s re-launched a revised version of its e-commerce site, www.juniorscheesecake.com, so that true connoisseurs (and new fans) can get a piece of the action even if they’re far from the Big Apple.
In 1950, Harry Rosen and his Master baker created the recipe, which has been a part of the family for three generations.
Harry opened Junior’s Bakery on Flatbush Avenue that year, and it’s been in business ever since.
Kevin Rosen, President of Junior’s and grandson of Harry Rosen, is the third generation to be involved in the restaurant, and is one of only 3 people who know the secrets of their confections.
His father, Walter, has retired from the business, and his younger brother, Alan, is in charge of sales and marketing.
Though he watched the business thrive under the leadership of both his grandfather and his father, he knew that technology was the key to continued viability in the 21st century.
He began by computerizing back office operations, and continues to champion state-of-the-art solutions for the family business, ultimately putting Junior’s in cyberspace.
Kevin learned from the past and respected the traditions that have remained relevant – notice he didn’t mess with the recipe. Yet, he understood the implications of changing market conditions. He acted to help the organization as a whole recognize the ramifications and adjust the game plane to fit the need.
When ex-Brooklynites, some living as far away as California, started calling Kevin and asking him to mail them cheesecakes, he knew Junior’s was ready for national exposure.
He began mailing the cakes; even creating the specialized packaging used to ship them, but soon realized that a more efficient system was needed in order to handle the volume of orders he was receiving.
No off-the-shelf software solution existed that met his needs, so in 1993, Kevin developed his own program that would allow him to handle mail order on a large-scale. This software has now been integrated to fulfill the orders placed on the website.
It was his openness to listening to his customers that supported his decision that change was required if Junior’s was going to stay true to its brand promise. He is open to learning and he’s willing to be resourceful to make things happen.
In the 1990’s, Kevin began to look to the Internet as another potential sales portal, and soon, the first incarnation of the Junior’s Cheesecake website was born. His motivation was simple: Everyone was putting up websites!
He proceeded the way so many other businesses did, by contacting a large web shop that could build him a web site.
E-commerce sites were appearing at a record rate, so he was confident he could fins a company that could build a Junior’s store online. At that time, Kevin felt that most important criterion for selecting the web design firm was simply finding the company that could provide results at the most competitive price.
He says of this decision today, "You get what you pay for."
This first attempt, Rosen feels, got them only "50% of the way there." Kevin felt that the first Junior’s site was merely a "cookie cutter site" created by a large firm that didn’t fully understand the business or the needs of the customer.
He discovered that the people he was communicating with were, generally, not the people directly responsible for building the site, and often, ideas and information were lost as they traveled down the chain of command. This was particularly frustrating to Kevin.
"I’m the type of person that likes to know exactly what’s going on. I don’t have blind faith, in other words." It became clear that the initial web site didn’t address Kevin’s, or the company’s needs.
But Kevin still believed that having an online presence was important. Although his first experience with the site had mainly taught him what didn’t work, he maintains that he wouldn’t have done things any differently.
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