Bottom Line Garry Bartecki
Where will you fit in? Reading and watching CNBC (financial channel) on a regular basis gives you a surprisingly good idea of how you are going to get out of this economic craziness and get a handle on where you stand in your market post-pandemic. Future business activities are sure to be different calling for action on management's part, but it is sure tough to make a decision unless you know where to start. One of the most interesting segments I saw on CNBC concerned Ford and Salesforce. They seem to be joining forces to help contractors get a better understanding of their business and identify where changes need to be made making them more efficient and more profitable. When you think about this it is a GREAT value-added program from Ford since a substantial number of the customers who buy the F-150 are in some sort of service or contracting business. Is your management thinking along these lines as a means to drive continued sales to current customers, but also be a selling point to attract new customers because you have something they need that they are not getting from their current vendor? Who could you team up with to do what Ford and Salesforce are doing? Think about this because there is a market share out there for somebody to take. Along these lines, I hope you had a chance to read “Five Lessons Learned for the Post-Pandemic Supply Chain” that appeared in an MHW email recently. The Five Lessons are as follows: • Stay open to new and unconventional ways of doing business. • Broadening networks; expanding connections; deepening relationships • Allocating resources to equipment and partnering with asset-based providers. • Increasing inventory levels. • Adding more storage space in multiple markets. Seems like the author, Dale Young of Worldwide Distribution Services, is suggesting spreading the risk, renting when there is a lack of hardware, stepping away from the just-in-time 16
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February 2022
approach, and adding buffer inventory to carry you over the hump. Now you made not need to follow this approach, but I bet you have customers who should be thinking about these issues and what to do about them. It seems to me that most lift truck dealers have customers with problems dealing with supply chain issues, inventory issues, labor shortages, logistic problems. payroll issues and Covid issues. They may also have issues with long-term contractors that are killing them because they are not using the equipment enough to warrant the cost. So, what help can you offer customers to ease their pain? Who could you team up with to reach this goal? Could you offer seminars or Zoom programs to cover some of these problem areas? Between you and your OEM, there have to be “solutions” available to stop the pain and at the same time strengthen relationships. It is no secret that it is going to cost EVERYONE more to run their business whether they are maintaining reasonable sales levels or not. Even if they are running at 2019 sales levels their margins will shrink due to cost increases or pushback on price increases. So, if you want to know your starting point for future planning, I think we could agree that your company along with most of your customers and potential customers are going to be dealing at some level with the problems noted earlier. NOW, THIS IS WHERE YOU FIT IN Customers are going to listen to anybody that calls on them who can reduce their pain in terms of cost reduction or improved efficiency. And they are going to expect you to deliver those solutions. So, you have two or three options to consider: • Lower your prices and live with it. • Find ways to lower your costs to absorb the cost of the solutions you are providing. • Find ways to assist customers in ways that you do not currently offer. What would the Ford CEO do? Ford is offering a solution that helps the customer pay for the truck he bought. Ford
