Cabela's 2011 Annual Report Download - page 5

components: training, manager development, and our
culture are not left to chance, but rather will help ensure
a solid foundation for growth.
Culture does not sustain itself. Rather, it is nurtured
and constantly reinforced within the Company. As
shareholders, you can take comfort that all possible
efforts are being applied to guarantee our growth is built
upon the foundational culture which has served us so
well for fi fty years.
We also take diversity very seriously at Cabela’s and
made signifi cant strides in 2011 in this area. Beth
Pritchard joined our Board of Directors mid-year,
becoming our fi rst female director. During the year,
we began a Women in Leadership program designed
to help prepare women at Cabela’s for leadership
roles. I am personally involved in this initiative. During
2011, we promoted a record number of women to
the director level and they are already making a huge
positive impact. We also formalized diversity as a goal
at Cabela’s and great strides are occurring across the
enterprise to celebrate diversity and build an inclusive
workplace. These initiatives are mirrored by a best-
in-class leadership development process from an
Emerging Leaders program to a Leaders Developing
Leaders program. Also encouraging was our largest
increase ever in engagement scores across our
Company as a result of making Cabela’s a great place to
work for all of our loyal employees.
Signifi cant progress occurred in hiring and promoting
talent in 2011. Following Pat Snyder’s transition from
Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Offi cer to
Special Advisor to the CEO, we were fortunate to hire
Scott Williams as our new Executive Vice President and
Chief Marketing and E-Commerce Offi cer. It has been
great to have Pat remain as an advisor, and he has
added huge value in his new role. Other changes have
occurred in other disciplines of the business to promote
high potential candidates and reach outside for diverse
skill sets we may lack. All in all, we could not feel better
about the talent pool we have to grow our Company as
we enter 2012.
We also view our role in the broader outdoor industry
much more seriously than in years past. Cabela’s
is the unquestioned leader in the hunting, fi shing,
and camping markets, so we felt it appropriate to
more formally increase efforts to support and protect
these activities. Accordingly, in 2011, we created the
Cabela’s Outdoor Fund, a separate charitable entity to
fi nancially support core outdoor causes. Specifi cally,
the fund intends to fi nancially support the United States
Sportsmen’s Alliance’s Trailblazer Adventure Program,
which has introduced more than 400,000 youth to the
outdoors in the last several years; the National Rifl e
Association, which defends our right to keep and bear
arms; and the bi-partisan Congressional Sportsmen’s
Foundation, which works on Capitol Hill to protect our
outdoor traditions. At the point of sale, customers are
asked to “round up their transaction to the next dollar”
to support these causes. The result has been hundreds
of thousands of dollars during 2011 going directly to
support our outdoor heritage. The Cabela’s Outdoor
Fund will continue in 2012 and support is expected to
approach $1 million.
Additionally, we have encouraged our team throughout
the Company to get more involved in organizations
in our industry. Our purpose is simple; we must
understand industry issues at a deeper level, and we
must be in a position to weigh in on policy related
matters. This involvement has reached from the
executive level to our full employee base, and is helping
shape Cabela’s involvement in the outdoor industry.
Continuous Improvement
As already noted, growth without an underlying
commitment to continuously improving core processes
is tantamount to building a house on a weak
foundation. Therefore, signifi cant effort was placed on
continuous improvement in 2011 in retail operations,
merchandising, supply chain, innovation, and marketing.
From a merchandising standpoint, these efforts led to
improvements in merchandise margin as we continue to
refi ne merchandise planning and vendor collaboration
initiatives. During the year, we implemented several
retail best practices with regard to product lifecycle
management allowing us to reduce SKU counts, and
we put signifi cant effort in the science of assortment
planning. Additionally, we increased collaboration with
key strategic vendors, which allowed our merchants
to focus on the right strategic partners in an effort to
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