LeeAnn Schumacher Joins Hinda as Director of Merchandising

Hinda Incentives is pleased to announce the newest addition to the team. LeeAnn Schumacher has been named the Director of Merchandising. Previously, LeeAnn was the director, merchandising and procurement for Summit Group, LLC. Prior to that, she was vice president business management/ sourcing for Enesco, Inc. and also had stints with Wilton Industries and Spiegel, Inc. She brings more than 25 years of global sourcing experience to Hinda.

“LeeAnn brings extensive experience in all aspects of the incentive merchandising supply chain to Hinda,” says Hinda president Dave Peer. “Her client focus provides the ability to partner with our suppliers as well as with clients, providing a new level of engagement in this important area of Hinda.”

LeeAnn, who has her Incentive Professional (IP) designation from the Incentive Marketing Association, will be responsible for finding innovative products and designing new merchandise assortments to programs. “I’m really excited to be working with such a successful and growing organization,” she says. “I plan on strengthening supplier relations and using these techniques to maximize revenue.”

LeeAnn lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with her husband, Jeffrey Forsythe. She enjoys reading, vintage shopping, scrapbooking, art and theater. She’s also an avid button collector.

Welcome aboard, LeeAnn!

Hinda Announces 2012 Golden Carrot Award Winners: Apple and Mach 1 Global Services

Hinda Incentives has announced the winners of the prestigious Golden Carrot Award, which were presented at the Hinda Incentives headquarters today in conjunction with the Motivation Show. 

Apple and Mach 1 Global Services, Hinda’s home delivery carrier, were selected as this year’s winners by demonstrating a solid commitment to providing innovation, service and cutting-edge products to the multi-billion-dollar incentive market. Hinda’s Golden Carrot Award recognizes its supplier partners who have consistently demonstrated dedication to the field of incentives.

"When you put two top companies like Apple and Hinda together, it results in a great partnership,” says Rick Bowen, Hinda’s Merchandise Manager. “Candice Lacrosse (Senior Account Manager, Corporate Gifting and Rewards for Apple, Great Lakes Region), has worked very hard with our team to include Apple products in our programs in a timely manner. We are both dedicated to delivering the best product and the best service to our award winners. Candice and Apple have been supportive and are an important partnership."

“It's an honor to receive the Golden Carrot Award,” says Lacrosse. “We’re very excited about it. We have built a solid relationship with both Rick Bowen and Michelle Flores (Merchandise Buyer and Hinda) and only see that relationship growing. Both are a pleasure to work with and they definitely keep us on our toes.”

Winning the Golden Carrot Award was a sweet surprise for Kari Thomsen, District Manager for Mach 1 Global Services.

“We are so happy to receive this award because we had to work hard to earn Hinda’s business,” says Thomsen. “I went to see Benito [Bustamante, Hinda’s Warehouse Manager] every Thursday to promise him the world. It took a lot of work to gain his trust and earn some business, but after six months he finally gave us an opportunity. Now I feel like we are an extension of Hinda.” Mach 1 Global Services CEO, Jamie Fletcher, who is based in Phoenix, also attended the award presentation.

Bustamante did finally give Thomsen an opportunity, but admits they tested Mach 1 with some really difficult deliveries.

“We gave Mach 1 some very challenging shipments and they stepped up to the plate,” says Bustamante. “Kari goes above and beyond. She’s on call 24/7 for us. She gets it. She knows we are delivering awards and how important that is. At Hinda, we deliver a superior customer experience.”

Selection for the Golden Carrot Award is very competitive. The extensive list of criteria for winning suppliers include high-quality products, innovation, timeliness of deliveries, prompt follow-up, the ability to provide updated product information and reliability, among others.

Check out pictures from the ceremony here!

Happy birthday, Michael!

Last week, Hinda celebrated CEO Michael Arkes' birthday with a barbecue - coincidentally on the last official day of summer. The whole office got together to feast on chicken, pasta, eggplant parmesan, salad and, of course, carrot cake! The party was a wonderful way to end the week and close out summer. Check out photos from the celebration here!

Happy birthday, Michael, and many more!

Hinda Goes Global: Part II

Currently, only about 47 percent of American companies are operating incentive programs outside of the US, despite the rising interest in these programs from countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, whose growing middle class populations are eager to participate in loyalty programs.

Recently, we introduced to you our newly launched global incentives program, infinitE℠ Global. We told you a bit about how the new program came about and the increasing need to provide incentive options on a global scale through distribution at the local level.  Now, we’d like to share with you a simple outline of the processes we have in place for providing incentive programs to a global market.

Two great features about infinitE Global are the flexibility to provide multiple types of incentive and recognition programs to different audiences in over 50 international markets and offering awards that are culturally and financially relevant to each participant.

As it stands, we are able to offer two methods for accessing infinitE Global – our Web Services Solution and our innergE® Solution. With Web Services, clients gain full access to infinitE Global through a three- to six-week implementation process, depending on specific client requirements.*

With our innergE Solution, clients gain full access to infinitE Global as well as all the tools on innergE, including digital. We will also provide our clients’ websites to them in their own language (for an extra fee and depending on translation requirements). With this option, implementation is estimated to be completed within eight to 12 weeks, depending on requirements and translation needs.*

All international vendors that Hinda works with are held to specific service level standards for prompt award delivery. With the exception of out-of-stock or discontinued items, infinitE Global products ship within two to four business days of order receipt.

The pool of international companies that would benefit from a recognition program is large and growing. Some of the multi-national marketplaces Hinda is able to serve include hotels, banks, car rental, software and energy companies. The fact that we can provide consolidated technology and seamless implementation in the user’s native language are added benefits to our clients and their participants.

We at Hinda are thrilled to be able to offer our unique technology and customer care services to a global marketplace. Stay tuned for the third installment of this blog series, where we’ll discuss marketing our new product to a wide and diverse audience.

*Contact Hinda for specific information and fees.

Hinda Goes Global: Part I

“Our industry can no longer think globally only in terms of the places we send people and the products we carry. We must now think globally in terms of complete business opportunities…” This quote comes from the Incentive Research Foundation’s (IRF) 2012 survey “Incentive Industry Trends.” The results of this survey found that, by the year 2015, more than 50 percent of Brazilians, Indians and Chinese will be considered “middle income” consumers.

Furthermore, in January 2011, Google searches on “employee engagement” were 10 times higher in India than in the US, five times higher in Singapore and four times higher in South Africa. India is now ranked third in searches for “employee recognition” – just behind the US and Philippines, and is just behind the US in searches for “sales incentives.” This shows immense promise for incentives services overseas.

Here at Hinda, we’ve introduced infinitE℠ Global, our online awards assortment for the international market. Loyalty trends show that the growing middle class populations in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are eager for opportunities to participate in loyalty programs. However, at this juncture, only about 20 percent of foreign-owned businesses have their own programs. We see this as a great opportunity to start diving into some of these markets with infinitE Global.

The crux of our program is having the flexibility to provide multiple types of incentive and recognition programs to multiple audiences. We’re offering in-country global award solutions to more than 50 markets and providing awards that are culturally and financially relevant for each participant. Coinciding with this, we are offering technology and services that consolidate global programs and reduce the administrative burden on these global companies.

We have over 46,000 merchandise items and 1,300 different brands on offer in our global catalogs, including big names such as Gucci®, Nintendo®, Microsoft®, Wilson®, Apple®, Samsonite®, Black & Decker® and Dyson®. Stay tuned for our next post in this series, where we’ll discuss our customer service standards and processes, accessing infinitE Global and our plan for marketing our new product – besides this blog series, of course!

Happy Birthday to Dave Peer!

Last Friday, the whole office gathered together to celebrate the birthday of Dave Peer, Hinda’s president. The day started out business as usual. Our quarterly meeting was about to wrap up in the warehouse when all of a sudden, music started blaring and “Puddles,” the mascot for the Oregon Ducks football team, came running out from between the aisles to surprise Dave for his birthday. As you can see from the pictures on our Facebook page, Dave is probably the world’s biggest Ducks fan.

After the meeting, everyone loaded up on beef sandwiches, eggplant parmesan, sausage and peppers and salad from Ferrara’s. Mid-food coma, we were called into the kitchen for another surprise for Dave. Soulful singer Joselyn Sims came to sing “Happy Birthday,” along with hits by Aretha Franklin and Beyonce. Safe to say she did a much better job than we would have done. After her serenade, everyone enjoyed Dave’s birthday cake and tried their hardest to concentrate on work for the rest of the day.

Happy birthday, Dave! We hope it was the best one yet!

Check out pictures from the party here.

Hinda Incentives Promotes Dave Peer to President

Michael Arkes and Dave PeerMichael Arkes, CEO of Hinda Incentives, announced the promotion of Dave Peer to President. Peer’s promotion provides a new leader for Hinda, a leading company in the incentive marketing industry. 

As Arkes shared with employees during a company meeting where the announcement was made, “It is important for a well-run company to develop new generations of talent. By promoting Dave to the role of president, Hinda is well positioned to advance to even higher levels of growth than we have seen in recent years.” 

Dave Peer joined Hinda in 2008. He worked at Carlson Marketing Group, Target Stores and Macy’s prior.  He is also currently serving as president of the board of directors for the Incentive Marketing Association. 

“I am incredibly proud to be leading the company that the Arkes family created 42 years ago, and look forward to a bright future for Hinda,” said Peer.