Innovation

Packwell has two main business innovations that impact the company and the community. First, Packwell prides itself on being a company that looks after the well being of its employees and customers. It is a family oriented business that not only supports the employee but also the families of the employees. On top of being a well-paying company, Packwell is very active in the lives of its employees and the community. It has its own soccer team and the team plays other teams in the Houston area. Packwell is a major contributor to the community. The company sponsors and supports all of the sports team that their employees’ children are a part of. This support is extremely beneficial for the community. It can lead to new sports gear and better facilities in the future, which will, in turn, provide a better experience for the children involved in these organizations. Packwell also focuses on the well being of the employee specifically. The company works to ensure that the “family/community” at Packwell encourages the employees to be happy and hardworking. One of the goals of the company is to make sure that the employees leave work each day with a sense of fulfillment so that they can go home and enjoy their happy family lives.

Second, Packwell has become a paperless company. The impact of using paper on the environment is very high and Al Duran, founder and CEO, realized this. He has been working to completely phase out the use of paper within its facilities, even with its truck drivers. The short-term costs were fairly high. Purchasing the new technology that would replace paper was costly, especially because each truck driver was provided a tablet and a cell phone to better track his or her shipments. The use of technology has also greatly improved the efficiency of the company. According to Mr. Duran, 250 trucks come into the facility every day and 250 go out. The use of cell phones allows truck drivers to text their shipping crate numbers to Packwell ahead of time. This way Packwell can have the shipment ready to load into each truck specifically by the time the truck arrives at the facility. This eliminates the need for the truck driver to arrive at the facility, turn in a bunch of paperwork, and then wait around for the shipment to be ready to load. Now the driver can know exactly where to park when he or she arrives and makes the loading and unloading process a lot more efficient for the company and its customers. On top of being a paperless company, Packwell is working to teach its employees how to have paperless households. Although the group of families impacted may be small, if every employee transitions to a paperless household and then speaks to another family about the impact of paper and convince them to become paperless, then the chain reaction can result in a big change around the world.

Inspiration

The inspiration for these innovations comes from the desire to improve the well being of the community, as well as, the environment. Al Duran mentioned in the interview that the impact that creating paper has on the environment is substantial and going paperless is a good way to decrease the amount of paper being made. Many companies are beginning to go green and make changes within their business to decrease the effect they have on the environment. Packwell is a company that uses a lot of paper, from packing slips to copious amounts of paperwork brought in by each of the 250 truck drivers daily. With such a wide use of paper within the business, Packwell and many other packing companies like it, have a large impact on the environment. By eliminating the need for truck drivers to bring in paperwork, Packwell is able to cut out a large amount of its paper consumption and begin contributing to a healthier environment.

As far as the innovation of building a family-like community within the company, the inspiration comes from wanting to improve the quality of life of Packwell’s employees. Perhaps Al Duran went through a situation in his life where one or both of his parents had unfulfilling jobs with companies that were not supportive of their family lives. Building a community within the company will not only improve the efficiency of the business but also the lives of the employees. Giving back to the community is huge for a company like Packwell. Companies that work to support and give back build a good reputation for themselves and will in turn increase business. The main inspiration behind all of this is to build a family structure that improves the lives of the employees and ensures that they leave work with a sense of fulfillment and can go home to enjoy their family lives.

Overall impact

Packwell’s business innovations most significantly impact the immediate community in Houston and Shanghai, because the innovations mainly affect its employees. However, Packwell has great potential to build on these innovations and attempt to influence the world. If all companies treated their employees like Packwell does, they would be much more profitable and happier. Employees would be happier and likely live better lives. They may be less stressed when it comes to paying the bills or asking for the day off to take care of their sick child. Packwell celebrates its employees’ birthdays and the birth of their children. It is very involved in almost every aspect of its employees' lives and works to help them in every way they can to make sure they live happy lives. Happier employees are harder working and actually want the company to succeed. Packwell’s family structure helps to build company morale and even make employees feel as if they are impacting the success of the company more than they would in a normal company environment. This company culture creates a tighter knit community of employees and better work environment. It is likely that employees wake up happy to go to a job where they are appreciated and encouraged rather than extremely stressed and scorned daily. Packwell is a small company with only about 250 employees worldwide. This helps employees feel like they have a voice in the company and they don’t get lost in a company of thousands of employees.

By becoming a paperless company, Packwell made the decision to better the environment. Although going paperless has been costly, the long-term benefits will likely outweigh the current costs. The company will be more efficient and even profitable in the future after reducing its paper consumption. Paper itself is costly and requires more of a labor force to handle it all. Paper is more time consuming. It requires customers to come in to the office to sign documents or look over order invoices. By becoming more automated, Packwell has eliminated most of these problems. All of their customer records and shipping orders can be kept for long periods of time without having large file cabinets that take up office space. The company can also easily transfer documents to customers without the customer having to come into the office. Packwell also saves money by no longer having to spend large amounts of money on copiers, printers, and fax machines. Packwell educates its employees on how to maintain paperless households. By educating their employees, Packwell is spreading its belief in going paperless and making a larger environmental impact on the world.

Business benefit

The business itself benefits a great deal from these innovations. Packwell is again very family oriented and works to improve the lives of its employees. By ensuring that each employee is a member of the family, Packwell is building a unique company culture the can be extremely beneficial for everyone involved. If an employee is unhappy at work or feels like he or she is being mistreated, then he or she is likely to be unmotivated and lazy. A happy employee is much more likely to work hard and to work to improve the company. The family dynamic of Packwell builds strong morale within the company. Employees are comfortable with each other and happy to help each other out in order to get the task done and make sure that company is profitable. This family structure also ensures that a single employee is not targeted when something goes wrong. Instead, Al Duran says that he looks at the community as a whole to make sure that the employees work together and gain a sense of fulfillment from their jobs. This sense of fulfillment then transfers to building a better family environment at home.

Packwell also benefits from “going green” and going paperless. Before the company decided to become more automated, there was a lot of exchange of papers that had to occur in order for the job to get done. The area of business that saw the greatest benefit from going paperless is shipping, more specifically the delivery truck drivers. As mentioned earlier, Packwell has 250 trucks that come in and go out from its facility daily. Many of these trucks come in from a port with empty shipping containers that need to be filled. After going paperless and working mainly from tablets and cellphones, truck drivers can communicate with Packwell and let them know which shipping container they are bringing in. Packwell can then work to have the shipment ready to load ahead of time. Working from a cellphone and tablet also eliminates the need for the truck drivers to get out of their trucks, go into a shipping office, sign in and drop off paperwork. They can now stay in their trucks, be told ahead of time, which bay to park their truck at and get the shipment loaded much quicker. This improves the efficiency of the business and can help decrease the chance of an error occurring. It will also almost eliminate the chance that paperwork could get lost or mixed up. Records can be kept for a long time and easily accessed when necessary. All of this translates to a more efficient and profitable company and a happier customer because their product should arrive quicker. On top of making the business more efficient, going paperless can actually save the company money. Using copiers, printers, and fax machines uses a lot of energy and can be quite costly for the company. Although Packwell's short-term costs were quite high in the transition to a paperless company, the long-term costs will be much lower and will save the company money in the long run.

Social and environmental benefit

Both of Packwell’s business innovations have an impact on society as well as the environment. Packwell is a family oriented organization that gives back to the community in Houston. Packwell makes contributions to local middle school and high school sports teams. Most of these teams are at schools where employees’ children go. Packwell is dedicated to supporting their employees’ families and treating them well. Packwell not only pays its employees well but sponsors events that benefit their children. Other children from within the community will also benefit from Packwell’s support. This support may help these schools provide better facilities, equipment, and uniforms for the athletes on the team. This benefits the entire community and can help these children build brighter futures, especially in the realm of sports. Packwell is also involved in the community by putting together a company soccer team and competing against other teams in the Houston area. This makes Packwell seem a lot more relatable and builds a unique relationship between the company, its customers, and the community.

Going paperless obviously has an impact on the environment. By going paperless, Packwell is not only affecting the production of paper. It is also eliminating the need for ink and trucks that deliver the paper and emit harmful gases into the atmosphere. It is a chain effect when a business decides to go paperless. There are a number of other factors that come with using paper. By going paperless, these factors are also impacted, meaning there is a greater environmental impact. Many companies believe that recycling is enough but it isn’t. It is much more beneficial for the environment if companies reduce their consumption of harmful products. With less demand for paper, less paper will be supplied and it will cause less of an impact on the environment. Going paperless not only reduces the company’s carbon footprint but also the carbon footprint of the paper. The process of making paper is detrimental to the environment. The process of making it, transporting it, and using it creates a massive carbon footprint that negatively affects the entire world. Packwell also teaches its employees to have paperless households. By influencing one family at a time, Packwell is slowly causing more and more people to reduce their paper consumption. If each Packwell employee goes paperless and then passes it on to another friend or family member, then the environmental impact worldwide can be reduced one step at a time.

Interview

Al Duran, Founder and CEO