The year 2021 will be remembered for a myriad of reasons that run the gamut of reactions, part positive and negative, inspirational and disappointing, encouraging and frustrating. It was the best and worst on parade, but through it all, we endured and look ahead to 2022 in hopeful anticipation. It’s in our DNA to be optimistic; after all, following the past 24 months, we’ve pretty much exhausted our supply of pessimism, right? And this is a case where we won’t mind the supply chain miring our bad thoughts on a ship off the coast of California.
We conclude our 2021 Elite Dealer challenges with some final thoughts on the issues that continue to confront the dealer community as they usher in 2022. While they won’t disappear with the turning of a calendar page, their trends are indicative of what we can expect to see during the next 12 months.
Like many dealers, Triumph Technology Group of Tustin, California, found itself needing to balance personal/family-related issues with client projects. This only underscores the value of cross-training, and Triumph remained ahead of these inevitable circumstances.
“We were able to provide time to those who needed it through having members of our team crossed trained in various areas and implementing new project tracking, so clients could be properly managed by multiple members of our team,” the dealer wrote.
Woodhull LLC of Springboro, Ohio, found itself in need of efficiency gains. The dealer had been renting warehouse space off-site, which caused its warehouse manpower to be inefficient when dealing with lease returns and brokered equipment. That’s when the need to break ground on new construction came to the fore.
“We financed and built a 12,000-square-foot stand-alone warehouse on our main campus, allowing us to bring all of our lease returns and brokered equipment in-house and drastically improve our warehouse efficiency,” Woodhull reported.
Cyber-Savvy
While cyberattacks are hardly novel, they have become particularly invasive during the pandemic period, with evildoers using sophisticated methods to infiltrate businesses forced to operate in a remote fashion, which has created more vulnerabilities/entry points for bad actors. Wanting to protect not only its own business but those of clients, Advance Business Systems of Cockeysville, Maryland, developed the Innovation Council to augment its ability to provide secure technology for customers.
“The Innovation Council is tasked with constantly evaluating the technology that we provide to our team and customers, and maintaining its top-notch security grade,” the dealer wrote. “Additionally, the Innovation Council evaluates continuously evolving cyber threats and determines the very best course of action to protect our customers by leveraging new technology, software and services from our team.”
The security exploitations caused by remote work also posed a challenge to Usherwood Office Technology of Syracuse, New York. The dealer held weekly meetings to ensure its tech stack provided a robust defense to increased attacks and that its clients’ network infrastructures would not be compromised.
“This is an ongoing challenge that we don’t see letting up in the years to come, but the team is excited to continue to tackle these issues and stay one step ahead of the bad guys,” the dealer reported.
Staffing Issues
Cleveland-based Meritech found the need to increase staff to a level that would enable it to continue delivering a high standard of support to customers. The dealer grew its ranks in 2020 due to the pandemic, and in 2021 returned its team to the office with more reinforcements.
“We overcame this challenge by listening to the feedback of our employees, and continuing efforts to build a brand that attracts top talent,” Meritech wrote.
Culture remains vital for most dealers, and imageOne of Oak Park, Michigan, has been tasked with recruiting the appropriate talent for new roles. Getting the right match in terms of core values has always been the key.
“By focusing on our core values and our ‘Deliver the X’ model, we are able to hire and retain amazing people that fit the imageOne culture,” the dealer reported.
James Imaging Systems of Brookfield, Wisconsin, seeks to continue growing its aftermarket share in the face of declining page volumes. “We are getting more aggressive with net-new volume and working specific vertical markets that continue to grow,” the company wrote.
Employee education is a primary concern for Impact Networking of Lake Forest, Illinois, particularly when it comes to bolstering sales reps’ knowledge levels. The dealer’s extensive list of products and services is more nuanced and intricate than in the past, and to effectively convey their value proposition to clients and prospects, employees need the benefit of experience to accrue the required knowledge.
“In order to solve this, we need to figure out a way to bridge the higher education, training and tenure with SEO and marketing to eliminate the daily grind of cold calling and prospecting,” Impact wrote. “By doing so, we would be putting an experienced, educated and more prepared employee in front of a client that is actually interested in buying something.”
