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An acute Christmas mental health crisis helped what became Marley’s Logistics drive a programme of strategic change, brand realignment and sustained long-term growth.

Seven years after the tragic death of co-founder Jacob Marley the company found itself in a sorry state. Trade was brisk and the surviving founder personally wealthy, but he and his business were also universally despised.

“We were in a dark place, stuck in the old ways of doing things,” recalls Ebenezer Scrooge, Marley’s CEO, in a rare interview to launch autobiography, “Miserly, me?”. “We were focussed entirely on the bottom line, on bean counting, with no strategic vision, corporate identity or mission.”

“This was having a profound psychological effect on me, which in turn was impacting on my business,” says a lean, turtlenecked Scrooge shifting on an outsized orange beanbag in Marley’s “Visioneering Lab”. Along one wall it says, “Learning from the past” and on the other “Making the future”.

“I was working hard but not smart. I was dealing with unresolved issues after Jake [cofounder Jacob Marley] passed away. I just followed him in penny-pinching on staff welfare and public relations,” Scrooge continues, his wiry frame becoming agitated.  

“We brought in the consultants, scarily out of this world consultants, giving them total freedom. They helped us brainstorm all the possible worst case scenarios, looking to the past, present and future. It was a harrowing experience, I do not mind telling you.”

He was unwilling to go into the specifics of their findings, saying that the information was “commercially and personally sensitive”. But he says the stakeholders included himself, as well as PA Bob Cratchit and his son Tiny Tim, who was seriously ill at the time. 

“Their conclusion was simple: We needed to calibrate our Christmas cheer as a strategic business decision, from me down to workers and their families and, crucially, for our investors.” We needed to build a Christmas value proposition which all stakeholders could buy into.

I ask, tentatively, how he answers accusations that the corporate Christmas revamp was not simply an attempt to improve his company’s poor public image and to create a positive personal legacy for himself? This elicits a sharp intake of breath and a steely look over frameless spectacles.

“I resent that accusation. Look up there,” he says, pointing to a photo of Scrooge photographed with a smiling boy on the wall. “Anyone who critises me should look at that young boy up there, Tiny Tim. He would not be around without me.” In a dozen other photos he pats children on the head.

“As for my legacy, rebranding the business Marley’s was surely acknowledgement enough of where that stood.” He adds that extensive polling suggested that the Scrooge brand was, as he puts it, “irreparable”. He looks fixedly at the wall clenching his jaw breathing heavily, entering a meditative trance.

Scrooge’s long time PA and publicity director Bob Cratchit tapped on the door and ushered me out.  A television crew was gathering outside the glass door, preparing for the next in a heavy round of interviews. 

“He can be kind of grumpy. I hope you got what you needed,” Cratchit murmurs as I leave. “He means well.” The struggle to salvage Scrooge’s legacy is unfinished. ■

SAN FRANCISCO—The perennial problem of poor punctuality has been solved, says San Francisco startup SynchroPal, billed as the “cure for lateness”.

“Our arrival times at social appointments varies, depending on factors including our cultural background and sense of self-worth,” says its research director James Kravitz.

The company’s eponymous app hopes to allow users with different arrival times to arrange meetings “seamlessly”, with each recipient seeing an appointment time tailored to them.

Friends who typically arrive 20 minutes late will see a time 20 minute earlier than those who arrive on time. Adjustments are made the other way for those who turn up early.

“An inability to make appointments on time can cause distress both to the one who is late and to those who must wait for them,” says Kravitz. The company estimates punctuality failures cost $23.7bn a year.

The medical and academic community disagree on whether the well-known phenomenon should be given the status of medical condition, tentatively called “dyschronia”.

“The traditional view is that people who are constantly late are inconsiderate or selfish, while others say they are simply unwell. Synchropal get around that whole thing,” says Kravitz.

The SynchroPal app is downloadable free from the Google Play and Apple Store, with users charged a micro payment for each synchronous meetup.

“We need to build up trust in the new system and to allow people to use it without thinking about it,” says Kravitz. “They will then find their lives run much more smoothly.” ■