F E AT U R E
ProSource CEO Dave Workman Speaks Out During Virtual CEDIA EXPO 2020! During CEDIA Virtual EXPO 2020 Jason Knott of CEPro held a keynote panel entitled, “Industry Outlook: Buying Groups Weigh In…”
Dave Workman
THE FOLLOWING EXCERPTS are from Dave Workman, CEO and President of ProSource.
JASON KNOTT: How do you see the state of our market for the rest of 2020 going into 2021? DAVE WORKMAN: We have a perfect opportunity at this moment. Clearly over the last several months, there has been a renewed interest in the home environment. Interest rates are down, the travel industry has been shut down and those dollars have been refocused around the home. The thing that has surprised many of us, has been the strength in home building. With interest rates so low, homeowners are taking on new properties and remodels, so our members have projects stretching into 2021 and maybe even into the following year. So there is plenty of work out there. Now if those discretionary dollars start reallocating back into other industries, it could take some of the edge off of the business we are currently doing, but at the same time, we have the want and need for technology in the home. Not just in our legacy categories, such as entertainment, but some of our others such as lighting and shades, that have such huge growth potential. These newer categories are carrying us up to the next level of business. Barring the wholesale collapse of the economy, we can see the CI business doing well way into 2021. JASON KNOTT: The growth of new home building has really surprised me as well. How is this effecting guys in the trenches? DAVE WORKMAN: We are seeing both ends. ProSource members are both big retailers and the CI side. The CI side is a little different…it is somewhat capacity controlled because CI can only go up so much because the profit is so heavily tied to labor. On the retail side we have posted the highest increases I have ever experienced in the month of July; the highest across the board increases were in June and then matched in July. Where the retailer can accommodate more of the surge demand, the CI guy is more of a steady stream upward, you are never going to get that spike. What you are going to get is a forward backlog and so what we are seeing is the back logs are getting extreme for those dealers that are booked solid for the rest of the year and into 2021. continued on page 12 FA L L 2 0 2 0 | 11
