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Turnarounds are hard work. No, I’ve never been the change leader in a corporate turnaround, but I have covered a number of successful ones and some not-so successful ones throughout my career.

More than a few were in the home furnishings industry; others were in banking, textiles and retail. It often takes new management at the top to step in an offer a new perspective, a new eye. Predecessors often are mired in the day-to-day strategy that may or may not be the best push for a company.

Either way, new leadership often brings change, and that’s what we’re seeing at several bedding brands now.

Both Corsicana and Purple are experiencing some of that now.

Just last week, Corsicana said it was shuttering a boxed bed factory in Indiana after opening it in March. The plant closure is part of the company’s renewed focus on value-priced products and the need to streamline efficiencies, according to CEO Eric Rhea.

Long known as a low-cost provider in the mattress category, over the past few years, Corsicana shifted its focus. Under the then-new strategy, the company pushed into a variety of brands and shifted away from its promotional product focus and toward a fractured strategy that offered a broad range of price points, including affordable luxury.

Now, under Rhea’s leadership, the company is returning to its roots, it seems, with a renewed focus on value-priced bedding.

Purple, the direct-to-consumer brand that is also partnering with retailers for an omnichannel approach, is also under relatively new leadership. Rob DeMartini took the CEO’s seat earlier this year.

In the company’s first quarter conference call last month, DeMartini shared that it may take a “few extra quarters than I’d originally anticipated to rebuild the company. In February and April, Purple reduced its employee count to match its revenue outlook.

DeMartini acknowledged that the company had taken missteps in relation to its reaction to the pandemic.

“The bad and the good news is that today our stumbles have been largely self-inflicted; a misread on the sustainability of COVID driven DTC demand leading to an overbuilding of production capacity, underinvestment in wholesale partnership, alignment stale marketing and underinvestment in innovation have hindered our ability to properly execute the past few quarters,” he said.

DeMartini said the company retained employees in critical roles and said he is confident that the work can be accomplished more effectively with the new staffing levels.

Significant change is never easy, and Corsicana and Purple are just two examples of companies in the category that are acting quickly to make necessary changes to remain viable in a competitive industry.

The results of the changes are still several months or quarters ahead, and my crystal ball is a bit hazy as to the outcome. I do know, the journey is always fun to watch, so buckle up and let’s see what happens over the balance of the year.

I’m Sheila Long O’Mara, executive editor at Furniture Today. Throughout my 25-year career in the home furnishings industry, I have been an editor with a number of industry publications and spent a brief stint with a public relations agency where I worked with some of the industry’s leading bedding brands. I rejoined Furniture Today in December 2020 with a focus on bedding and sleep products. It’s a homecoming for me, as I was a writer and editor with Furniture Today from 1994 until 2002. I’m happy to be back and look forward to telling the important stories impacting bedding retailers and manufacturers.

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