32 minute read
STATE OF THE INDUSTRY
Be My Guest: Beyond Lead Generation, Dealer-Hosted Events Solidify Relationships with Business Community State of the Industry Erik Cagle
It all begins with a simple idea. Let’s have a few customers come to our headquarters one Friday for a lunch-and-learn on a topic of common interest. We’ll feed them, do a 45-minute presentation on managed services, pull one of their business cards from a fishbowl and present a $100 Best Buy gift card to the winner. Then our sales reps will circle back with them the following week.
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Office technology dealers have dined with clients and prospects for as long as resellers have courted businesses with all manners of equipment and technology that make their work day easier and more efficient. In recent years, however, the idea of a hosted event has taken on new meaning. And what used to take a few hours of planning has escalated into a full-blown, sometimes even branded, event of Herculean proportions.
Everything is bigger: the invite list, the venue, the educational program, guest speakers, catering, prizes and contests—not to mention the budget and the time invested in bringing hundreds of guests to a third-party venue for an afternoon of education, fun and networking. It’s all designed to ultimately solidify relations with clients and prospects while generating business. In the end, the point of a hosted event is to portray the dealer as a thought leader and instill confidence in attendees. The hope is that attendees will trust their dealer partners to provide guidance regarding the tools and technology that enable them to achieve more with less.
We’ve assembled a selection of dealers to share their experiences taking hosted events to the next level, so you can find an idea or three to take away from their efforts and implement into your own marketing endeavors.
Bob Maxwell, KOMAX Business Systems
As is the case with several dealers, the idea of KOMAX Business Systems doing a hosted event evolved from its advertising agreement with a local sports team—in this case, the West Virginia Power minor league baseball team in Charleston, West Virginia (an affiliate of the Seattle Mariners). As part of the deal, KOMAX is allotted space in one of the facility’s luxury boxes, where the dealer can host employees or clients for a night at Appalachian Power Park.
During the first year of the dealer’s agreement with the Power, KOMAX President/Owner Bob Maxwell decided to host a night at the park, which attracted nearly 100 customers and prospects. There were several copier models on display, but many attendees viewed the opportunity as a free night out to have some food and drink while taking in a game.
“We didn’t realize a lot of new selling opportunities from it,” Maxwell noted.
After that experience, Maxwell decided to take a different approach. Instead of inviting a broad array of clients and prospects, he decided to position the show from a vertical perspective. Subsequent years have centered on the educational space, the legal market, finance, and architects/engineers. Presentations
WE’RE TAKING ON MORE OF THE CONSULTANT’S ROLE, MAKING THEM AWARE OF THE LATEST TRENDS IN OUR MARKETPLACE AND THE GIVEN TECHNOLOGIES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT. THAT’S PROVEN TO BE QUITE SUCCESSFUL FOR US. – Bob Maxwell, KOMAX Business Systems
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Success for KOMAX’s hosted events hinges on balancing a blend of technology information with an evening of relaxation and entertainment
panels,” Maxwell added. “Like all dealers, we’re looking for other streams of revenue, and we’re putting more focus on these panels now.”
The year 2019 marked the eighth annual Boise Technology Show for Boise, Idaho-based Fisher’s Technology. The oneday technology trade show, held at the Boise Centre East, casts a wide net, providing valuable content for attendees of all professional persuasion, from CEOs and CFOs to IT engineers, marketing managers, administrators and HR personnel.
According to Marketing Director Haley Grigsby, the show offers a diverse range of topics and presentations given by noted regional technology heavyweights, covering IT security, cloud transformation, multi-generational workforces, women-led business startups, building digital brands, artificial intelligence, managing health care information and a host of other relevant topics. Some seminars draw as many as 100-200 attendees.
have focused on products and software specific to those sectors, with manufacturers and software companies providing demonstrations.
While the presentations have been more focused, Maxwell took precautions not to trample over the social aspect of the evening. He schedules the seminars for 5 p.m., roughly two hours before the first pitch of the game, so that attendees can become educated on the products and services that are specific to their fields without missing out on the good time.
“They don’t feel pressured that we’re trying to sell them something,” he said. “We’re taking on more of the consultant’s role, making them aware of the latest trends in our marketplace and the given technologies we’re talking about. That’s proven to be quite successful for us.”
In 2019, KOMAX enjoyed a successful event catered toward education, with principals, teachers and school boards representing roughly 35 district organizations, both public and private. Konica Minolta’s All Covered touted the virtues of the School Gate Guardian security and management system, and Promethean representatives talked about the line of interactive display panels offered through KOMAX. Within three months of the July event, the dealer had taken 10 orders for 60 panels, and is in talks to complete an even-more-lucrative deal.
“We hadn’t been promoting (the panels) like we should have, but the event opened our eyes to the possibilities offered by products such as these
Haley Grigsby, Fisher’s Technology The Boise Technology Show, hosted by Fisher’s Technology, has experienced significant growth during its eight-year run
In addition to the seminars, lunch is provided, along with keynote speeches, a technology trade show and networking reception. Cool technology gadgets are also raffled off.
Konica Minolta and Canon were among the participants/ booth holders, along with Microsoft, Laserfiche, TIAA Bank, PaperCut, Kofax and dozens of other regional and national manufacturers, software providers and other technology-based firms.
“It’s one thing to go online and look up information, but our trade show offers attendees the opportunity to interact with different vendors and demo equipment, from copiers to software,” she said. “It’s a fantastic opportunity for businesses in this community to be able to attend one event where they can make all of their business technology decisions.
– Haley Grigsby, Fisher’s Technology
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on a technology showcase at FirstEnergy Stadium, home to the Cleveland Browns. In past years, OBM used its advertising relationships with the Browns—which included use of facility— for internal events, according to Janae Spagnola-Lyons, company vice president. So OBM decided to host an event for clients at the stadium in August, making it part customer appreciation, part technology showcase.
“There was a lot of hype surrounding the Browns in the preseason, so we wanted to piggyback off of all the excitement,” Spagnola-Lyons said. “We had a large space to fill, and I wanted to make sure we invited all of our partners. So we wanted to ensure we’d have something for everyone.”
“Early on, we were bringing in 50-100 attendees, but now we have 400-plus. That’s quite large for the Boise market.”
The event costs approximately $50 to attend, but the business community in Boise clearly recognizes the value. Grigsby notes it takes a team effort to pull off such a large-scale event; beyond the sales and marketing teams at Fisher’s, the company taps into local colleges and universities (including Boise State), chambers of commerce, technical councils and various other organizations to pull together its educational agenda.
“The big thing about this event that sets it apart from others is the leadership component,” she said. “We’re not pigeon-holed on seminars and keynotes that focus just on technology. The tech component is important, but the human aspect of managing and leading people is critical to the success of organizations.”
Fisher’s Technology is moving the event to every other year in Boise, as the show takes considerable resources to stage, according to Grigsby. Its branch in Spokane, Washington, will host the event in 2020 before returning to the Boise Centre East in 2021. That will help to keep the content fresh and expose another market to a major show.
Cleveland-based Ohio Business Machines (OBM) dipped its toes into the hosted event circuit in a major way in 2019, putting Fisher’s Technology uses a robust seminar agenda and technology expo to cast a wide net for attendees
Ohio Business Machines offered attendees many opportunities to win prizes, including this fish bowl drawing for Cleveland Browns tickets
On the technology side, Canon, Sharp, FP Mailing, Sophos and Synology were among the OBM partners that set up booths at the showcase, along with PaperCut and Star2Star. The idea was to have at least one partner from each category bucket that OBM offers to its clients. And Canon showcased its wide-format printing gear, producing Browns schedules and other footballrelated content, some of which was used as autograph fodder for former Cleveland stars Reggie Langhorne and Hanford Dixon to sign. One speaker gave a presentation on cybersecurity.
FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland served as the perfect venue for Ohio Business Machines’ first major hosted event, which included vendor booths manned by the dealer’s partners
continued on page 22 OBM really scored points with attendee retention through the help of an outside entertainment company. The third-party provider brought in large televisions and stands that were set up behind every vendor’s booth for demonstration purposes. The event was held in the Lakeshore Club, which has televisions throughout the space for viewing games, and OBM was able to show technology content on these monitors.
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Games and drawings also plied attendees, with a DJ providing the evening’s entertainment. OBM gave away 10 65” televisions and held a football-throwing contest in which the winner received a cruise. Games with football themes—hourly trivia questions, life-sized red cup ball tosses, cornhole—along with stadium tours, game ticket giveaways and meeting former Browns players kept the event lively and engaging for the 275 attendees.
As the event was partly geared toward customer appreciation, Spagnola-Lyons noted there was less of a push for selling beyond the vendor fair, although the event did yield some postshow sales. She is confident that OBM will make tweaks to the event moving forward that will help maximize the dealer’s ROI. Oftentimes, an event can start out with one purpose, then evolve to serve multiple functions for the dealer. Take Applied Imaging of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and its annual hosted event. Created 11 years ago as a customer appreciation “tailgate” party for 175 people (customers and prospects) in advance of the annual University of Michigan-Michigan State football game, it has grown to two locations with more than 700 attendees.
Beyond the opportunity to “talk trash” about which team will win while feasting on a variety of food and beverages, attendees can mingle with Applied Imaging’s sales and leadership teams Ohio Business Machines included a booth for visitors to learn more about the Dark Web and other cybersecurity topics
and learn more about how the dealer’s hardware, software and service solutions can solve their business challenges. “Our marketing team now owns the event, and its goal is to educate and drive revenue while continuing to keep the spirit of the rivalry alive with sports-inspired yard games throughout, with high-ticket prizes that our customers and prospects can win,” said John Lowery, president of Applied Imaging.
The dealer’s invitee list consists of all customers, top prospects and previous-year attendees. A local catering company provides the expansive menu of food, while a multitude of games ranging from cornhole to football toss and water pong are offered. Attendees have an opportunity to win raffle prizes such as a 4K flat-screen TV, $500 gift cards, iPads, Yeti coolers and high-end headphones. John Lowery, Applied Imaging
In addition, a technology showcase consists of vendor partners who exhibit their software, service and hardware platforms for expansion and new opportunities. Keeping with the theme of the event, most vendors will have a game at their booths, where visitors can win prizes.
What really sells the event is the sense of community it fosters. Lowery invites former players, cheerleaders, local TV/ radio broadcasters and other notable people from both colleges Applied Imaging hosts as annual tailgate party in advance of the popular University of Michigan-Michigan State college football game
to talk about their schools, teams and the storied rivalry between them.
The proverbial phrase “less is more” can find validation in the Atlantic Production & Industrial Print Expo created by Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office. The New York City dealer began holding two expos per year in the early 2000s—one in the city, the other in Westchester, New York. That format was switched to one show for all offices and clients, held every other year. Its show in May 2015 attracted approximately 1,200 people and 650 unique companies, according to company President Larry Weiss.
The show continued to evolve. In 2017, it was geared toward C-level executives only, focusing on IT security and production print. Last year, production print was the solo subject, and 70 key decision makers from clients and prospects visited MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, to learn more about the technology. Dwarfed by its 2015 counterpart, the expo nonetheless generated more than $1.5 million in business in less than six months.
“With the smaller expos, we’re able to take on current topics and relevant products for our clients in a much-more-intimate setting where we’re able to meet our ROI objectives,” Weiss observed.
While the name of the event, its frequency, the products and services, and attendee target may be constantly on the move, the objective of informing, educating and generating increased business remains static. The executive management team Weiss Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office has hosted technology expos for the past 20 years
Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office calls on its vendor partners (including Ricoh) to provide support at its technology expos assembles a team of mostly Atlantic personnel—with contributions from its OEMs (Konica Minolta, Ricoh and EFI for its most recent Production Expo last June). When it comes to Atlantic’s larger expos, all of its partners participate—Toshiba, Kyocera, HP, EFI and PaperCut, in addition to the aforementioned manufacturers. Those and other and tech partners help to whiteboard the current topics that are relevant to the products that will be on display at the expo. The team focuses on specific subject matter as it relates to the broader topic. Larry Weiss, Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office
– Larry Weiss, Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office
“Even at the Production Print Expo, although we do demonstrate most these large products, the educational piece of how they can grow their business and implement new technologies is the main focus for this segment,” Weiss added.
The dealer’s expos have yielded some big-name guests, including NFL stars Eli Manning and Phil Simms, Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman and decorated Navy SEAL Leif Babin. High-end gifts are also doled out via hourly drawings.
Even while Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office can find justification in the ROI each production yields, there are ancillary benefits derived. “These events are truly worth it, and although it’s not measured in the ROI, in the end all employees are filled with a strong sense of accomplishment,” Weiss said. “Morale is high and people feel so good about the company and themselves. To me, this is priceless.” ♦ Now-retired New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning (flanked by Larry and Linda Weiss), is one of several sports-theme guests who have appeared at technology expos held by Atlantic, Tomorrow’s Office
Family Values Meet Forward-Thinking Sales and Marketing: Meritech Evolves to Further Greatness Dealer Spotlight
At times, the familyowned and operated office technology dealership gets pigeon-holed. It’s viewed as being so steeped in its traditions that it doesn’t have the wherewithal or perspective to advance as a business in an environment M&A mavens leverage to acquire them by the pound. Leadership succession flat-spots due to a lack of interest from the offspring (or a lack thereof), and the founding father (or mother) has little choice but to cash out to a well-heeled opportunist.
However, anyone who thinks Cleveland-based Meritech subscribes to the “live by the MFP, die by the MFP” philosophy embraced by many family-run companies will quickly be disavowed. Founder and CEO Dennis Bednar may have launched the business in
1978 out of the family garage courtesy of a $500 loan from his Aunt Jean, and used his station wagon to deliver copier equipment. But aside from the familial roots, there is little that is old-fashioned about this company.
Meritech is a firm that knows how to take care of its employees, and has made culture an essential ingredient to its hiring and M&A proclivities. The company indeed has a succession plan in place; in addition to Dennis Bednar and his wife/President Mary Ann, sons Eric and Brian maintain crucial roles within the organization. Mary Ann’s brother, Ken Vanden Haute, is executive vice president.
Wanting a solution to cater to every manner of client, the company carries an expansive range of OEM wares, including
Kyocera, Ricoh, Konica Minolta, Sharp and Brother. Transformation is everywhere within the organization, from its budding center for innovation to its growing managed services platform and the practice of using a subscription-based selling model. Add in a robust marketing platform that proliferates brand awareness and a plan to grow from $30 million to $50 millionon the strength of organic and M&A growth (as evidenced by its 2018 acquisition of ACE), and you have a poster child for the dealer of tomorrow, as opposed to a resource-challenged lifestyle business in search of an exit. We spoke to Mary Ann Bednar and Vanden Haute to learn more about how empowering people, process and technology is enabling Meritech to dictate its own destiny.
continued on page 26 Meritech President Mary Ann Bednar
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experience. We also have our own inhouse leasing company, which gives usa competitive advantageinserving our clients that other dealers may not have.
The Meritech family, led by Dennis and Mary Ann Bednar (front row, fifth and sixth from left)
How was business in 2019? What were the keys that dictated your success? BEDNAR: It was a year of change for Meritech. The key to our success is leading with a cloud-first mindset. Embracing this mindset helped us increase revenue across all service offerings. With our strong hardware footprint in the market, we made a decision to refresh our mission and vision to reflect our growth strategy in the managed services space. Our mission is to embrace and drive change in order to gain growth and value for our clients. Our vision is to be the best managed services provider by empowering people, process and technology.
You reported that LED solutions increased by 180% and telecom solutions grew by 140%. What does this entail? VANDEN HAUTE: With our LED and energy solutions, we work with the top distributors and bring them in to do full energy audits with our clients. We look at the footprint of how they consume their energy and lighting layouts to upgrade and reduce costs. By doing this, we help showcase our green initiatives and help create budget allowances so our clients can invest in other high-end technology solutions.
On the telecom side, our consulting team uses the latest technology, carriermethods and investigative techniques to collect and analyze each billing rate element and every line item. We review multiple years of billing and contracts toestablish usage patterns, detect billing anomalies, verify that each service for each facility is accurate and ensure they have best-in-class pricing.
The result is a comprehensive set of actionable steps to help our clients recover monies from their providers due to billing errors, and clear recommendations to reduce ongoing communications expenses. What sets Meritech apart from the competition? BEDNAR: Our people. We succeed as a business through passion and commitment to developing our team. Everything we do, we doto create an environment conducive to performance that our people can thrive in. We’ve created a culture of consultative, solution-basedselling, rather than beingproduct driven. If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything else looks like a nail. We coach our field team to truly understand “why” our clients’ workflows exist. We actively work with our partners to keep a close eye on transformation opportunities. Havingthe right processes and infrastructure in place allows our team toperform at the highest level and deliver an exceptional customer
Brand recognition has always played a vital role in Meritech’s growth, from event sponsorship to trade shows, radio ads and signage. Can you talk about how this platform has evolved? BEDNAR: Our marketing department takes a data-driven approach to identify opportunities for brand awareness. This mindset allows us to be descriptive rather than reactive in our marketing efforts. We use search engine optimization and search engine marketing to feature content that is relevant to the needs of our clients. We’ve expanded our branding efforts on social platforms, particularly with LinkedIn. Much of our event sponsorship ties in directly to our organizational commitment to plant seeds in our community. One of the most significant initiatives Meritech has fostered is its relationship with the Cleveland Indians and its minor league affiliates in Akron and Lake County. Can you provide some insight into the growth of this partnership? BEDNAR: The Cleveland Indians and Meritech have been winning together for 17 years. It’s been a long and strong partnership. Our advertising relationship is
difficult to go to market on the additional services we offer.
an important piece of our brand recognition strategy. The Tribe have consistently been one of the best franchises in Major League Baseball, and the Meritech brand runs parallel to the success and methodology of the Indians organization. Tell us about your new high-tech office in Valley View. You have plans to expand beyond Ohio; do you have any specific markets targeted? BEDNAR: Alongside the success of Valley View, the transformation that’s really happening is at our headquarters. It’s the most important piece of our growth strategy. Phase one is upgrading our internal IT infrastructure, and phase two is the design and reconstruction of our demo space as a center for innovation. We want to showcase our latest solutions in an interactive environment for our clients. With the infrastructure upgrade now complete, we expect the center for innovation project to be completed by Q4 of 2020. To that end, will you be active in the M&A space in 2020? If so, what qualities of a dealership would fit well with your business? BEDNAR: We’re looking across the Midwest, but any M&A has to fit our culture. We have multiple options on the table for 2020. It’s truly about the fit. We feel many mergers and acquisitions never reach their full potential because the cultures were not aligned. ACE joining the Meritech family is a great example of shared vision. It made the transition that much easier. We aim to scale our business so that we can achieve truly sustainable growth. Our ideal acquisition would build on our existing technology stack to extend and strengthen our current market position. I think the people who also come with that vision are really important. If you’re buying a book of business, you also want to add the people who are supporting it. We want to make sure the cultures align and the people who really run the organization, make the organization. We’d look for a healthy group that we could align and develop with to add to the Meritech family. VANDEN HAUTE: Based on years of M&A experience, I think it’s important to make sure that the company you’re targeting has clients that are set up for the vision and future of your company. You want to make sure there are opportunities to grow outside of the copier, particularly with managed services—make sure that it’s the right account to fit your model. Or, at least, you want the dealer to have a good book of business that sustains a client base. Some acquisitions we made were built on a smaller client base that made it Shown from the left are Eric Bednar, director of IT; Mary Ann Bednar, president; Dennis Bednar, CEO; Brian Bednar, warranty administrator and purchasing assistant; and Ken Vanden Haute, executive vice president
In an age when finding and maintaining quality employees has become one of the top challenges for dealers, Meritech has implemented an employeerecognition program that includes monthly and annual MVP awards. Can you discuss your philosophy around recognition? BEDNAR: Our people are an important asset. It’s my personal belief that it’s all about the “who.” Who we hire, how we lead, in order to build a culture. Exceptional customer service can be achieved by strong teams that support each other. There’s a strong link between our customer service and our culture. Only great people are going to provide great customer service.
Our culture is made up of an attitude of gratitude. We love to celebrate all the creative ways our team goes above and beyond to do right by the customer and our fellow employees. The MVP program that Meritech established years ago was created to acknowledge members who exemplify our foundational values of integrity, honesty and accountability. This acknowledgement continues to grow in 2020 with the launch of a new monthly GEM award, which stands for “going the extra mile.” In addition to that, we have a new Founder’s Award, which is going to be an annual honor named after our founder, CEO Dennis Bednar. This award is given to the team member who upholds the values and beliefs that Dennis founded the company upon 43 years ago. We’re very proud to do that.
Provide some insight into the development of your IT infrastructure solutions and how you’ve been able to grow the offering. BEDNAR: We hired and developed the right people to build an IT infrastructure and managed service division that we’re extremely proud of. Secondly, we designed and implemented the investment into our own internal IT infrastructure. In 2019 alone, we devoted over $200,000 to continued on page 30
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various hardware and software upgrades, ranging from a highly redundant SDWANnetwork, fully flash failover clusters, desktops and laptops to improve the employee user experience, and data analytics software to help them understand our customer base. This way, we truly practice what we preach, and we empower our efficiency and effectiveness inhouse. Combining those two factors with the technology stack we’ve assembled to take to market makes up our formula for sustained growth. VANDEN HAUTE: I think today’s success is changing ever so rapidly because years ago, as we built our managed servicepractice, our goal was to pick up all the devices we could manage from a client, and really focusing on the contract and not the client. Today, we present a five-year technology plan that would basically replace their entire switching, routing, network, workstations, servers, PCs, security and licensing, while also eliminating as much hardware as possible and moving applications and servers to the cloud. Really selling that strategy to the clients separates us from our competition and helps us partner with the right clients. What was your dealership’s greatest accomplishment in 2019? BEDNAR: Evolving our company culture is truly a great accomplishment. By embracing a solutions-first selling model, we were able to facilitate our largest recurring revenue contract to date. This contract is a national account for which we implemented an unlimited subscription-based managed print agreement. Using the same methodology, we acquired our largest new business opportunity in the health care vertical. This deal included 300 MFPs—all application driven— followed by a subscription-based MPS contract of over 1,000 printers. What was the biggest challenge you faced in the past year? BEDNAR: Although the culture change was a success, it was definitely a challenge to get there. We worked diligently to change the internal mindset from copiers to solutions. And now our entire staff is tasked with bringing that vision to the marketplace. Netflix commoditized the way we view entertainment, and Amazon commoditized the way we shop. The same thing is happening in our industry. As printing hardware becomes commoditized, we have no choice but to evolve. We’ve incentivized our sales staff to pursue solutions-based recurring revenueopportunities. Meritech celebrates its Corporate Kickoff event (“Unleash Greatness”) from February 2019. Shown from the left are Ken Vanden Haute, executive vice president; guest speaker Earnest Byner, a former NFL star and Super Bowl champion; Mary Ann Bednar, president; Dennis Bednar, CEO; Brian Bednar, warranty administrator & purchasing assistant; and Eric Bednar, director of IT
Did you have to incorporate any new training programs to emphasize this movement? BEDNAR: We have, and we will continue to do so, but it is still a challenge to get there. In the past, training consisted of learning the hardware; MFP and speeds and feeds, specs, etc. Today, the sales rep of the future is being trained on business process management and office automation applications. We are teaching our clients how they can be more efficient and streamline processes. VANDEN HAUTE: You also must redevelop and redesign your comp plan to match your model. This year, we actually based our president’s club on subscription-based selling, not the hardware number. So we’re really putting a focus on moving in that direction. During the last year through this process, we watched our hardware numbers grow by leading with a different format compared to other companies. What are your goals for the next 12-18 months? BEDNAR: Financially, our goal in the next 12 months is to achieve $35 million in revenue. Beyond that, through organic growth and M&A, our long-term goal is to reach $50 million in revenue. Culturally, our goal is to continue to grow and develop our leadership team. We want to drive the success of our managed services division by living out our mission, vision and values. We will continue to be actively involved in M&A based on fit, and we need to establish ourselves as the premier managed services provider in the market. It is also important to continue building trust and loyalty with our clients. As the industry continues to contract and evolve, what will be the keys to success for the dealer community? BEDNAR: Meeting the needs and exceeding the expectations of our clients. With our foundation as a copier company, we have thousands of networks in which we already operate. Our goal
is to not only retain those relationships, but also to expand into managed services and really grow the recurring stream of revenue. It’s imperative to keepfocus on the growth of business process optimization efforts, both client-facing and internally, to increase effectiveness. Regardless of how long you’ve been in the market, if you don’t put digital transformation at the top of your priority list, you’ll get left behind. What do you like most about your job? BEDNAR: I love to serve others; that’s true happiness for me. In order to serve businesses and provide the best products and services, we must first start by having the best people. I am honored to be part of a company that has such strong organizational commitment. We have tenuredemployeeswho have been here as long as 40 years. Ultimately, it’s not only our commitment to our customers, but also our community. We strive to serve our community through volunteer opportunities and donations throughout the year. At the end of the day, it feels good to know that our customers and
community can count on us. For me, the dreams of achieving worthy goals have made every day a privilege. Outside of work, what do you do for fun? BEDNAR: Spending time with my husband Dennis and my family. We’ve been blessed with three children, and two amazing and beautiful 5-year-old twin grandchildren. Secondly, making time for myfaith and community involvement, which are both top priorities in my life. Over the years, we’ve enjoyed traveling around the world, experiencing memories beyond belief. From skiing to beaching and visiting our most favorite destination, Italy, it’s been an adventure. We still live in the home that Dennis started the business in 42 years ago; he actually grew up in that home andwe enjoy sharing it with our family and friends more than ever. ♦ Meritech employees enjoy the night life during the company’s 2019 President’s Club trip to Puerto Los Cabos Golf and Spa Resort in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
