Eric Crown

Eric J. Crown (born 1962 in Phoenix, Arizona [ [http://www.inc.com/magazine/19991201/15698.html Hot Zones, Setting Up a New Office Article - Inc. Article ] ] ), is the co-founder and current Chairman Emeritus of Tempe, Arizona based Insight Enterprises, an IT solutions company with revenue's in 2004 of $3 billion.

Biography

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Crown studied at the Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business. Crown wrote a senior project business plan to direct sell computer components by telephone, without having the inventory in stock, and then to buy the order from the supplier and ship it as directly as possible to the buyer. Crown received a "B" for the project, because "A"s were reserved only for projects that were viable in the real business world.

Hard Drives International

On graduation, Crown worked as a programmer and also in retail, and found he could make more as a retailer [ [http://wpcarey.asu.edu/seidman/casb/vol_2_no_4/insight_enterprises.cfm ASU CASB- Center for the Advancement of Small Business ] ] . In 1986, Crown and his brother Tim took a $2000 advance on a credit card to place a single advert in computer parts magazine Computer Shopper. The brothers advertised a hard drive for a price less than they could buy it for, gambling that the price would fall in the 20 days it would take to publish the magazine issue. The prices fell, and their gamble paid off making Hard Drives International famous for having the lowest prices on hard drives [ [http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2005/05/23/story2.html Insight Enterprises shifting focus to IT services - The Business Journal of Phoenix: ] ] [ [http://company.monster.ca/insightca/ Insight Direct Inc. (IDI) ] ] .

Insight Enterprises

The brothers repeated the strategy and upscaled the business, changing the name of the company to Insight Enterprises in 1988.

Originally, Insight attracted customers through advertising and the use of inbound toll-free telephone lines. In 1993 it expanded its marketing mix to include catalogs and added outbound telephone account executives to focus on establishing a larger customer base. In 1995, Insight debuted on the World Wide Web [ [http://www.piworldwide.com/PredictiveINdex/PrintDetail.asp?ReferenceKeyword=InsightGrowSalesForce Growing a Successful Sales Force ] ] .

In 1996, the company went public with revenues near the billion dollar a year range, and today has over $3 billion in revenues. Eric Crown resigned from the board as CEO, while Tim serves as Chairman, and has little involvement in day-to-day operations. In May 2007, current Insight President and CEO Rich Fennessey announced Eric advised the Company he would not seek re-election at the 2007 annual meeting of shareholders. However, Eric would retain his honorary title of Chairman Emeritus.

Company culture

Eric Crown was known at Insight Direct (c. 1990-1995) for wearing simple loafer shoes with no socks. Crown was creative with publicity and employee morale, announcing one morning (1995) that none of its 800 male telephone salespeople would any longer be required to wear ties Mondays thru Thursdays. After studying sales patterns for casual days, they had given a hint of the announcement that morning by having the receptionist cut each tie in half with scissors as the employees made their way through the lobby and security-pass door.Fact|date=February 2007

Another time, an employee had lost his hair due to cancer treatments. Crown announced that in solidarity, employees would volunteer to have their hair shaved in the front lobby for free. He promised to donate $100 to the American Cancer Society for each head shaved, and to shave his own head if 100 employees shaved their heads. They did, and Crown was true to his word. It was written up in the local newspaper at the time.

After designing, building, and moving into a state-of-the-art company headquarters (with 4 giant arenas for salespeople to have training presentations and coaching from a center hub), Crown wanted to notify the local businesses of the presence of 2000 new employees in the area, and wanted substantial buy-in for an immediate large list of employee discounts on lunch, so he sent out a letter to the local restaurants alerting them to the fact that all the employees had been asked to use only $2 bills (available for exchange at the reception desk) so they could see what an impact the company had on their revenues.

At his speech at the WP Carey School of Business graduation 20 years after his graduation, 3 beach balls were being batted around the gigantic Wells Fargo Arena by the graduates. For the solemnity of the ceremony the security guards apparently took this quite seriously, and were observed to catch one ball at a time and march it out of the arena's main exit, until there was only one ball bouncing. It went way up into the air and closer and closer to the stage where Eric Crown was sitting with dignitaries of the college waiting to speak. It landed right in his lap. Did he non-chalantly tuck it under his chair? No! He stood right up, and served it back to the crowd like a volley-ball. In his speech he recommended, "Don't get all As. I got pretty much straight Bs. Bs are good. Drink beer. Keep the ideas flowing."

Eric Crown has told a group of his employees at lunch (1998) that he subscribes to about 100 magazines, almost none of them about computers and the IT industry, and reads them "pretty much cover-to-cover".

Politics

In September 2003, Crown started the group "No Taxpayer Money for Politicians", and in 2004 filed an initiative for the 2 November, 2004 ballot that would amend the Arizona state Constitution, and ban the use of Clean Elections money for political races. Crown, who had contributed $30,000 to the campaign, said: ""With our huge state deficit, why are we earmarking $20 million for politicians? There are a bunch of other good causes: children, teachers, etc. If this takes 16-hour days, I'll do whatever it takes." Crown said the group planned to raise about $500,000 to cover the cost of gathering 184,000 signatures by July. After getting on the ballot, the group will raise money to do television spots and other advertising [ [http://www.caclean.org/problem/azrepublic_2004-01-27.php End Of Election Fund Goal Of Insight Chief: California Clean Money Campaign ] ] .

In Spring 2005, Crown together with other Arizona business people formed the "Arizona Free Enterprise Club", after expressing frustration with what they viewed as the rapid expansion of state government and the lack of a tax-cut mentality at the Capitol. They hope to reignite the philosophical battle over the role of government [http://www.asu.edu/copp/morrison/nov05.htm] .

References

External links

* [http://www.insight.com Main Insight.com website]
* [http://images.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/personinfo/FromMktGuideIdPersonTearsheet.jhtml?passedMktGuideId=33922 profile at Forbes.com]