Innovation and Persistence holds the Key for King of Shaves

Will King, Founder of King of Shaves, was the superb opening speaker at the Business Teacher National Conference 2011.  Will started KoS with just £15,000 of seed capital 18 years ago and has since turned it into a $200m turnover business through innovative product design and a passionate approach to disruptive marketing.

Will’s presentation is provided as a pdf link here. king_of_shaves_btnc2011.pdf

KoS is a great case study to use with students. Will’s challenge has been to take on just two competitors - but they are big ones.  Gillette, in particular, is the market leader with a commanding 80-85% market share.  A few years ago global brand giant Procter & Gamble paid £36 billion to buy Gillette - how can a relatively tiny business like KoS possibly compete against a dominant monopoly like Gillette?  Will’s strategy is based on product innovation, aggressive price competition and highly effective use of social media to build brand awareness and generate customer loyalty.

KoS remains a relatively small business, but it competes strongly and continues to thrive in an external environment that is highly challenging.  Will’s view is that the key is to remain calm in the eye of the storm - he tries to position KoS in the middle of that storm. Gillette and Schick (Wilkinson Sword) have both engaged in intense price wars over the last 18-24 months as the battle for market share intensifies.  But they haven’t been able to kill his business.

I liked Will’s organisation structure for KoS.  You won’t find anything like this in the business studies textbooks!

Will’s role as CEO is as the axle in the organisation.  His task is to ensure that the functional areas work effectively and that the KoS wheel spins efficiently.  You could give this org chart to your students to consider!  They would probably ask what “Purdos” are? It stands for pounds, euros and dollars - i.e. the finance department. “Props” stands for operations; “Brannovation” represents product development; “Smarketing” is the smart marketing department.

Will also showcased two great examples of how viral marketing & social media has helped build the KoS customer base. I’ve included these below.

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