Resources and Capabilities 39A Strategic Stitch in Time
A famous Islamic parable declares, “If the
mountain will not come to Muhammad, then
Muhammad will go to the mountain.”
The John H. Daniel Company of Knoxville,
Tennessee, found a way to transform the
proverbial mountain into a rare, valuable, and
hard-to-copy resource. The company manu-
factures high-ticket men’s suits, producing
more than 75,000 garments, priced between
$800 and $2,900 each year, for retailers and
independently-owned custom clothiers. Most
of its suits are made-to-order garments with
handcrafted details sewn by master tailors.
Thirty years ago, John H. Daniel was one of
30 firms in the United States producing suits
like this; today they are one of the five.
When the company went into business 70
years ago, many of its tailors were Italian
immigrants. Thanks to an improved, modern
Italian economy, that resource is no longer
available. The company was unable to find
American workers with the advanced tailoring
skills their products demand, but it was also
reluctant to close the Knoxville factory and
move the company’s production offshore and
overseas.
Then the Bryan family, who own and oper-
ate the company, had an idea. Some of the
tailors they had recently lured away from a
competitor in New York were immigrants from
Turkey, so Benton Bryan, the company’s chief
operating officer, traveled to Istanbul with one
of his new Turkish employees. He found that
Turkey had a large number of skilled tailors
facing competition from new mass manufac-
turers. Some of these tailors were willing to
move to Tennessee to work for John H.
Daniel at an entry wage of $11.50 per hour in
a nonunion shop, especially if there were
other Turks already on site to ease their tran-
sition process. Bryan interviewed more than
100 Turkish terzior tailors, testing their skills
by asking then to stitch a jacket sleeve in
place or sew a buttonhole by hand, and
found 13 firm prospects.
Nine of those prospects are now living and
working in Tennessee. To make that happen,
Jackson L. Case IV, the company’s general
counsel, spends a large chunk of his time
negotiating with the State, Labor, and
Homeland Security departments to get visas
for these Turkish tailors and their families.
The visas are issued under the same proviso
that allows universities to recruit foreign aca-
demics, or high-tech firms to hire skilled pro-
grammers.
Part of what makes these tailors a rare,
valuable, and hard-to-copy resource is the
care and expense this company invests in
them. Attorney Case personally oversees the
welcome for each new hire to Tennessee.
He and an interpreter meet the employee
and his family at the Knoxville airport, and
drive them to the apartment complex where
many of the other Turks live. The company
pays the rent on a two-bedroom apartment
for the first few months, and purchases new
furniture, a television, dishes, pots and pans,
towels, and other necessities for the apart-
ment. If the tailor’s family includes school-
aged children, Case arranges for them to be
vaccinated, tested for tuberculosis, and
enrolled in the local schools. The company
also provides each worker with $1,000 in
spending money to get him or her started,
and will even make a no-interest loan so their
new employee can buy a used car. Case
estimates that it costs John H. Daniel about
$12,000 to bring each Turkish family to
Knoxville.
The daily routine at John H. Daniel now
allows time for their new employees, who are
all Muslims, to pray at their required salaah
times during the day. Both the Bryan familySTREET STORY 2.1