Electrical Industry Roundtable 2014 - 19

BRANSCOMBE: Yes. Th ere has to be an identity to these
opportunities. We have to know what we want to achieve fi rst before
we can go and advertise it. I don't think we know what we want to be
yet. When it comes to talking about the online pieces, do you have
technical people to be able to support that regardless of the product
expertise? Do you have it in your budget to say,
'I am going to start hiring technical people to
manage my online service even when you don't
know what that will render yet'? Where do you
come up with what you will spend on until you
know what you will achieve, what is the ROI?
KERR:Mr. Syer, what do you think?
SYER: Your initial question was 'will the specialist
organizations draw talent from the existing
business pool?' I don't think it's so much today's
specialist organizations that would do that, but
other business models that are more appealing
to younger, talented people. So where would a young person rather
work: at the eGiant's new downtown mega offi ce complex in Toronto
or at remote distributor branch? My teenage son is not thinking about
working in a wholesale branch environment. He wants to be working
with a computer somewhere interesting where he can enjoy his own
defi nition of a " cool " job.
BRANSCOMBE: Quality of life is what the younger generation is
looking for. It's not necessarily somewhere where a company will pay
them more, it's time they want. You have to off er them time, and the
traditional business model, the world that I'm living in, doesn't off er
that time model that people are looking for. And I think many people
around the room understand how much time we have to invest in our
businesses and now the younger generation comes in and says I want
to be able to do this but I want to have the ability to step away from
it. I don't think we are there to be able to off er that yet and as you see
the evolution of the industry, we are going to have to become more
fl exible...we need to think about what a four-day work week might
look like. Again, it's not always pay that will attract them, there are
other attributes that we currently don't off er.
KERR: One of the things I have been studying is that I have had this
lovely opportunity to be looking down at the players on the fi eld from
my 'Goodyear blimp'. One of the things I've been watching is the
evolution of more engineering and electrical engineering and CET
titles in electrical wholesaling in Canada. Th at compared to a profi le of
Canadian Electrical Wholesaler JUNE 2014
19
Steve Branscombe.
Electrical Industry Roundtable 2014

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