Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. As you've been hearing all
Speaker 1: along on Bloomberg. Many industries of course impacted as a
Speaker 1: result of the virus. Looking forward to our next guest room.
Speaker 1: Griffith is chief executive officer at Lantza and he joins
Speaker 1: us on the phone from Long Island, New York. So
Speaker 1: nice to have you here with Jason and myself. First
Speaker 1: of all, Um, we hope you're doing well, your family
Speaker 1: as well your workers. Give us a little insight into
Speaker 1: how your world personally and professionally has changed. Well. One
Speaker 1: of the things that has changed for us has definitely
Speaker 1: been the workforce and how we're managing things, um, And
Speaker 1: thanks a lot for the question on that's a little
Speaker 1: bit different depending where we are in the world. We
Speaker 1: have offices in Asia and Europe and here um. For
Speaker 1: our workers in Asia, they're actually on their way back
Speaker 1: to work, UM. Japan business has been picking up. Our
Speaker 1: sourcing office in China, UH is starting to come back
Speaker 1: in and where we're originally thought supply chain was going
Speaker 1: to be a big problem, we see very very few
Speaker 1: issues there, if any Uh. In Europe and in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: where we're based, UM, we are on many of the
Speaker 1: employees are working from home. Staggered staff if you're in
Speaker 1: the office, uh, and the warehouse is still working and
Speaker 1: shipping product out. But let's again on staggered staffing. UM.
Speaker 1: And in New York where we have a small design office, Uh,
Speaker 1: people there are home and working from home. Everybody is
Speaker 1: getting used to working on teams by Microsoft. Everybody's getting
Speaker 1: used to working on FaceTime. People are actually finding that
Speaker 1: they're having some pretty good conversations digitally and making decision
Speaker 1: staffs and moving on personally. I had my whole family
Speaker 1: in the house today. Everybody's out of New York and
Speaker 1: is working from home, and we're just looking for rooms
Speaker 1: to have conference calls in exactly. I think we're all
Speaker 1: doing that. I had to put an on air sign
Speaker 1: on my you know, I'm broadcasting from my daughter's bedroom,
Speaker 1: so you know, uh, you know, this is what we're
Speaker 1: doing these days. UM. So Jerome, help us understand sort
Speaker 1: of your customer at this point, because we know you're
Speaker 1: in touch with them as well. You know, brick and
Speaker 1: mortar stores are closed, I believe, UM, but you know
Speaker 1: online continues, what what are you seeing as you sort
Speaker 1: of get down into the customers sphere. Yeah, with the stores,
Speaker 1: we have twenty six stores, so not not a very
Speaker 1: large store base, and and we've closed that over the weekend.
Speaker 1: I'll be closed for a few weeks. Online or online
Speaker 1: customer has been very robust at the end of twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen and then for the first few fiscal weeks of
Speaker 1: up until about ten days ago, where we started to
Speaker 1: see people's um demands slow down and really changed rapidly
Speaker 1: day by day. UM. I think that people are much
Speaker 1: more focused, or happened in the last few days of
Speaker 1: just you know, can I get the basic essentials? I
Speaker 1: believe over the course the next few days, as people
Speaker 1: start to see that, you know, you can get food,
Speaker 1: you know you can go in the grocery store and
Speaker 1: get chicken and toilet paper, You'll be fine. Um, there,
Speaker 1: their lives were going to start to turn to now
Speaker 1: this is the new norm for the time being. How
Speaker 1: do I manage through? So? Uh, you know, we're staying
Speaker 1: on a day by day We are seeing some people
Speaker 1: uh enticed by discounts a little bit, but that's not
Speaker 1: what we're really looking at right now. I think it's
Speaker 1: important that people have the opportunity to shop from home
Speaker 1: and from the safety of their own homes. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I don't think it's right to take
Speaker 1: advantage of any difficult situation. You know, it's interesting. I
Speaker 1: want to go back to what you said about China.
Speaker 1: Give me an idea, because we had a story in
Speaker 1: the magazine last week that was trying to that. You know,
Speaker 1: the question is is China really getting back on track?
Speaker 1: Because from what we from what our reporters found out
Speaker 1: is that, you know, yes, energy usage is up, which
Speaker 1: is a key indicator to figuring out what's going on
Speaker 1: in the Chinese economy. But we're also hearing that there
Speaker 1: are projections that factories have to hit in terms of
Speaker 1: energy usage, and that there are just people going in
Speaker 1: and turning on the lights. From what you're seeing, what
Speaker 1: can you really clearly tell us about how much they've
Speaker 1: gotten back? Because I think the Chinese story does help
Speaker 1: us maybe hopefully figure out how we get back and
Speaker 1: how long it takes. Well for us, it's really two stories.
Speaker 1: One is China, but also one is Japan. Um On
Speaker 1: the China side, Uh, we had had been very worried
Speaker 1: about supply chain straightaway, having said that China only represents
Speaker 1: about of our production worldwide. Um, the guys were late,
Speaker 1: definitely getting back from Chinese New Year. But as we
Speaker 1: looked at production schedules and have been working with the
Speaker 1: factories directly, we're finding that almost everything is going to
Speaker 1: be on time or up to two or three weeks late,
Speaker 1: which is actually okay for us from delivery standpoint. UM.
Speaker 1: Japan was a little bit of a different story where
Speaker 1: we had an ongoing business in Japan and we ship
Speaker 1: out of Yokohama, which is where they had the large
Speaker 1: cruise ship was quarantined for quite some time. Uh, many
Speaker 1: of our employees ended up working from home. They weren't
Speaker 1: coming into the office. We had customer service reps which
Speaker 1: were working from home on laptops, and that went on
Speaker 1: for several weeks. But they're coming back into work now.
Speaker 1: Is the cases of on down to you know, small
Speaker 1: numbers or even zero in some cases. So we see,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like far as law. You know, there's
Speaker 1: the curve. There's a curve going up and there's a
Speaker 1: curve going down, and it seems as though Asia is
Speaker 1: on the other side of the curve right now, And
Speaker 1: are you seeing anything in terms of your own sort
Speaker 1: of worker population in terms of cases and things like that,
Speaker 1: and how are you managing that? Only got about forty seconds.
Speaker 1: We haven't seen any I was saying to my family today.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. You know, we talk every day. I think
Speaker 1: communication is you must be up tenfold in the last
Speaker 1: two days, and we have seen or heard of no one.
Speaker 1: Now you have to knock wood on that and realize
Speaker 1: most of our guys were in Wisconsin, which is not
Speaker 1: really a hot spot. Yeah, exactly, all right, Well, we
Speaker 1: really really appreciate it. I hope you come back and
Speaker 1: visit with us at a time when we're not just
Speaker 1: talking about the virus. You've got some really interesting collaborations.
Speaker 1: We didn't get to talk about Reese Witherspoon. That's a
Speaker 1: miss on us. And you've got some interesting stuff going
Speaker 1: on in brick and mortar as well. Jerome Griffith is
Speaker 1: the CEO of Lands and Johnny us on the phone
Speaker 1: bunker down with his family as we all are. He's
Speaker 1: out on Long Island. We need to do an extended podcast,
Speaker 1: and and he's got a fascinating background too. He worked
Speaker 1: it to me so a lot to get into their
Speaker 1: we helpful, come back and visit with us