Hinda Incentives has reached a milestone this month celebrating its 40th anniversary. The company started in March, 1970 with six people, and has grown to more than 100 employees with nearly $100 million in revenues.
It all started when founder Ben Arkes set out to sell cameras, but was asked by Panasonic to add transistor radios to the mix. He became Panasonic's premium distributor for the region. This led to forming Hinda Incentives, named for his mother, Hinda Arkes.
Son Michael, fresh out of college in 1970, joined Ben and uncle Nate and together they built Hinda into one of the nation's leading incentive and reward specialists. Hinda's products and services motivate client employees, sales staff, and provide incentive rewards to dealers, distributors and other customers.
"When we started we had three sales reps: My uncle Nate ran the office and my uncle Morrie shipped everything. Office manager Alice Yamashita did all the behind-the-scenes-
In the nineties, Hinda was on the leading edge of Internet technology. They were one of the first companies to offer a web-based system to manage incentive and recognition programs, including an online awards catalog as a supplement to its "hard copy" catalogs. Participants could track points and redemption activities easily and conveniently online.
Today, the online innergE® platform, as well as Warehouse Dash, are recognized as innovative and industry leading. While many other companies have come and gone, Hinda continues to grow and thrive, due in a large part to the leadership of Michael Arkes, the continuing focus on the customer, and the team atmosphere among employees. "Goals are easy to understand, and each person knows how their role affects our business." says Arkes.
However, things were not so technologically advanced in the beginning "We had index cards that had the name of the company on them and the number of product we had in house. Every time we sold something we would subtract from the card," says Arkes.
Just ask Therese Brisard. who came to the United States from Haiti in 1969. After an interview and a typing test she was hired in 1972. "We did everything manually, billing, mailing, and answering phones. Technology changed everything,"
During her tenure Brisard, who is called "grandma" by most employees, says she "has trained a lot of people." But she's not ready to retire. "You get attached to the place. You just enjoy the atmosphere and enjoy what you're doing." Brisard was recognized and rewarded by Hinda with her own barbeque at her 35-year service milestone in 2007. Buyer Mike Julian, who started in 1981, says, "As a testament to the company's environment, employee tenure includes 23 employees with more than 10 years of service, a number which will spike to 31 by the end of this year. Nine of the current employees have 20-plus years of service."
Remembering growing pains can also be humorous. IT Manager Bill Ricketts joined Hinda in February of 1982 as the staff accountant/controller. "Nate, Ben, Irving, Michael, and I would all work on credit approving the sales orders. Nate would get the order and call the customer for past dues. Nate wouldn't document it. Ben would do the same thing, then Irving, and then me. Customers would get three to five collection calls for the same order because we weren't transferring information or communicating between ourselves. It made our credit and collections staff look awesome!" he says.
Product was easier to handle in the old days. Julian adds, "Along with the evolution of Hinda, amazing product changes happened as well. We saw the introduction of video cameras, flat screen televisions such as plasma, LCD and LED which mount on the wall, digital cameras and MP3 players to name a few. Compare these with console televisions, cassette players and regular still cameras which required film developing. The constant changes, to 'new' and 'exciting' awards, allowed us to deliver better products, with more features, with each successive year."
In the early days, Hinda offered a variety of 500 -1000 items from their 12,000 square foot warehouse. "Our original warehouse didn't have a dock. We had carts on wheels where we--the salespeople--
Twenty-eight year veteran warehouse manager Benito Bustamante, says their growth "has been incredible."
Hinda's growth demonstrates the high value that client companies place on motivation and incentive programs--even in tough economic times. "The Incentive industry, our industry, is a wonderful industry and it works." says Arkes. "Non-cash incentives motivate people to action, and toward desirable behavior and results. In many companies, channeling behavior and results are desperately needed. It is up to us to structure programs to motivate people to do what their leaders want them to do."
