We continue our year-end look at the Best of 2021 with a Top 5 of the most surprising developments in the industry. Feel free to send along your own Top 5 list, and if we have enough responses, we’ll include them in a future piece for our newsletter. We’d certainly be interested in hearing what you have to say.
5. M&A flourishes. OK, sorry, we did write about M&A in the initial Top 5 installment, but the growth in deals year over year caught a lot of people off guard. We charted about 35%-40% growth over 2020, and the natural reaction would be to attribute that to many dealers taking a wait-and-see approach to transacting deals in such volatile business conditions. Fair enough. But the uptick in deals also towers over the volume of M&A we saw in 2019, too. The guess here is that sellers assessed the long-term market and decided they were not comfortable in moving forward with business as usual and sought refuge in joining more well-heeled organizations with a greater product and service catalog that could enable them to sell deeper within existing accounts. That a tremendous majority of the deals saw the incumbent executives remain on board for more than a transitional period to lead on the local level is positive and encouraging. Expect to see many more $5-$10 million dealers consolidate their resources in an effort to better endure the post-pandemic era.
4. Log4shell vulnerability. This is fairly new—you can read more about it here—and it’s not quite a shocking development as cybersecurity infestations go. This one is a little different, however, and a bit more of an insidious threat with the potential to do greater harm across a wider spectrum. A number of software providers to the industry sent out customer guidance reports, with information regarding patches and other mitigation efforts. This one bears watching over the coming weeks to get a better understanding of the potential harm and exposure to bad actors. On the bright side, these nefarious crooks continue to represent a call to action for end-users availing themselves of your managed security solutions.
3. Jeff Gau retires from Marco. We were so bummed out to hear that the estimable Mr. Gau would no longer be at the helm of the St. Cloud, Minnesota, dealer juggernaut. Full of Midwestern charm, Gau made for excellent copy, and I was always amazed (but perhaps shouldn’t have been) that he was so free and giving when it comes to talking about industry issues. That’s one of the best aspects of the industry. Many top execs have no issue with being forthright and sharing for the betterment of the office dealer community. If you haven’t already, take advantage of the many opportunities to join a dealer peer group.
2. The great resignation. If you’ve checked out our December issue (and here’s the electronic version) or have followed the issue in the mainstream media, then you’ve already familiar with the stats—millions of workers, starting around the May timeframe, tendered their resignation in an effort to redefine themselves from a professional standpoint. Our industry was not immune from this development, but fortunately, the office dealer segment was not significantly impacted. That, in itself, can be largely attributed to the emphasis you’ve placed on corporate culture and maintaining a happy workforce. It wasn’t easy…after all, how do you maintain a culture when everyone’s scattered to the remote office’s four winds. But it could have been worse…you could be in the hospitality racket. Ugh.
1. Supply chain. We spoke to an office executive the other day who alluded to having about $650,000 worth of written, yet unfulfilled orders. A few weeks back, another dealer quoted about $5 million in orders stuck in neutral. One exec chimed in, “If we could fulfill all those written orders, we’d all have a merry Christmas.” He’s not alone in that feeling. If we pooled all of the industry’s backlogs, we’d probably have a dealership of epic proportions. Much like the mass resignations, supply chain issues have touched the entire business landscape. But unlike the Great Job Hop of 2021, our industry did not escape the scourge of supply chain largely unscathed, to put it mildly. Frustratingly, there’s no single throat to choke, which is why they call it a chain. And the estimates for resolution are all over the board—some say six months, others a year, and some feel it will be an issue into 2023. That easily makes it the year’s top shocker, and a continuing source for concern.
