It’s time to bid adieu to 2023. On the whole, it wasn’t a terrible year, unlike its three predecessors. It was a year in which business seemed to settle into its new normal, if such a thing exists. The supply chain pipes unclogged, backorders were filled and many dealers far exceeded their pre-pandemic revenue levels.
As the page turns to 2024, many of the annoyances that plagued dealers during the past year will undoubtedly follow them into the new calendar year. Quite a few of the challenges were felt across the business spectrum as the ramifications stemming from COVID-19 imparted fundamental changes on how we view employment. The priorities today’s workers stress are much different than they were in 2019, and it’s tough for longstanding businesses to reconcile hybrid work environments. Some companies refuse to bend on the issue, which ultimately shrinks its pool of hireable candidates.
HR concerns are but one worry. We close the book on our December Elite Dealer challenges and solutions theme with a mixed bag of issues that are certain to test your mettle in 2024.
Satisfied Employees
A snarky solution toward addressing the difficulties in finding qualified employees is to keep hold of the people already on staff. Easier said than done—despite the best efforts of a dealer to provide competitive compensation, benefits, perks and other incentives, there’s no silver bullet to preventing turnover. Still, that hasn’t stopped companies such as CPI Technologies of Springfield, Missouri, from ensuring it’s taking every reasonable step to keep team members happy.
“CPI has raised the pay standard for our employees while doing our best to hold prices down as much as possible,” the dealer reported. “By streamlining our processes with automation, we are able to do more with the high quality people we bring to the team.”
At times, difficult changes need to be made in order to maintain, or restore, corporate culture and harmony. Automated Business Technologies of Centennial, Colorado, noted that some legacy team members who had produced moderate to good results started poisoning the firm’s culture; tenured reps felt entitled to accounts from former team members rather than prospecting new accounts.
Action was needed. “We removed one of three sales managers that enabled the problem reps,” the dealer wrote. “Ultimately, the former sales manager resigned. [We] terminated one of the reps, another rep resigned, and we replaced them with new to the industry reps. It’s taken time to get the new reps producing regularly, but the team culture improved dramatically and equipment sales grew 29% year over year.”
Obviously, all turnover is not a result of employees seeking greener pastures. Recognizing it had a workforce with many team members approaching retirement age, Doing Better Business got in front of the situation via a recruitment strategy that targeted local technology schools. The Altoona, Pennsylvania-based dealer also offers internships to expose younger people to the industry and the company in particular.
Introducing the industry to would-be employees at an earlier age also helps to groom them for the future. “We are also started some social media campaigns showcasing younger employees having fun,” the dealer wrote. “The next phase is to begin speaking at junior high and middle schools to help the Vocational Schools target more students.”
Different Approach
Proven IT of Tinley Park, Illinois, found it needed to address the wage gap issue while ensuring the successful integration and retention of new talent—areas that provided significant hurdles. The retirements of Baby Boomer team members added to the complexity of the talent landscape.
It took a multi-faceted approach to tackle the challenges. “We prioritized comprehensive reviews of our compensation structure, actively addressing wage disparities to promote fairness and equality within our workforce,” the dealer wrote. “We revamped our onboarding process to enhance talent retention to provide new hires with tailored support, mentorship and training, fostering a more inclusive and engaging environment. Simultaneously, we introduced knowledge transfer initiatives to capture the expertise of retiring employees, ensuring a smooth transition and minimizing knowledge gaps.
“These measures collectively allowed us to strengthen our talent pipeline, bridge generation gaps, and establish a more harmonious work environment, ultimately positioning us for continued growth and success.”
With the strength of its business traditionally derived from click revenue, Automated Business Solutions of Warwick, Rhode Island, has needed to broaden its new account base as clients downsize. Offering a wider array of products and services has diminished the dealer’s over-reliance on clicks.
“In addition to a growth in new business relationships, we continue to see a noticeable increase in postage, VoIP and managed IT services,” the company wrote.
Reconciling Growth
Growing pains are also unavoidable. Just ask Centriworks of Knoxville, Tennessee, which boosted its revenues 24% year over year. Unfortunately, it taxed the company’s processes and human resources, and exposed the weaknesses in its operations.
Internal input has helped alleviate some of the stresses. “We addressed these areas by building teams of line personnel to systematically review and forward their suggestions to management on how to solve the issues,” the dealer reported. “Solutions ranged from changing how we use systems to reshuffling team members to make best use of their talents/skills and a lot of things in between. We are still working at it.”
Another dealer that sought to reconcile its growth in net-new business was Image Matters of Knoxville, Tennessee. The modern MFP, it noted, is a truly integrated network citizen that supports multi-layered workflow in constantly evolving and complex customer environments.
“With the increased flow of new business orders, we are constantly analyzing and refining our processes from the initial order to implementation to ensure that our proposed solution delights our clients and makes the favorable first impression needed to future incremental business,” the dealer reported.
Catering its approach to address client needs in the age of hybrid work has been a focus for genesisONE of Northbrook, Illinois. This was no minor consideration, as the dealer embarked on a complete rebrand of its business.
“Through extensive internal and external first- and third-party research, we gained knowledge in how our customers want to do business with us and then put that information into our new engaging website and brand identity,” the company wrote.
M&A growth offers many hurdles unrelated to negotiations. When GoodSuite of Woodland Hills, California, is conducting due diligence on a potential addition, it entails an exhaustive review of financial statements, forecasts and outlooks. A closer look is also required to satisfy the need to onboard companies that share the same values, mission and vision.
“These can indicate where our two companies align, or don’t,” the dealer stated. “We also carefully assess the administrative or operational systems and processes to make sure they work well. GoodSuite has very specific set of core values. To duplicate our company culture so that the new entity embraces it requires careful onboarding of the new staff. It is challenging and takes time. When we get it right, we end up with a productive, efficient version of GoodSuite, where everyone is on the same page.”
Fund-amental Relationships
There’s something to be said for dealers forging a solid partnership with their banking partners. Solutions YES of Portland, Oregon, notes it has been particularly helpful with its credit line and lease prefunding, not to mention high-activity periods.
“In the last year we’ve had periods of time where we were implementing several large sales at the same time, and needed to lean on our banking relationship,” the dealer wrote. “Having a high amount of trust between us has kept cash flow from being a significant challenge.”
Speaking of finances, rising interest rates have bedeviled dealers intent on maximizing cost savings for their clients. This has been an area of focus for Network Digital Office Systems in Fairfield, New Jersey.
“Customers are always looking to reduce costs, but with rates increasing, it is challenging,” the company reported. “We had to come up with creative offerings to keep clients’ costs down while upgrading technology.”
