CED

December 2013

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Aftermarket And Now, For Our Next Act In 2014, you can either do things right, or actually do the right things. BY RON SLEE With the end of 2013 and the prospects of a fresh new year coming our way I thought I would bring forward some of the things that we need to get really serious about in changing our ways and getting into the 21st century. The first thing I want to put forward is a comment that springs from many discussions over the past year: "This younger generation isn't like we were when we started in the business world." Well, I would like to salute them all if for no other reason than they aren't like we were. Isn't that a good thing? I remember coming to work the first day and not having a clue about what my new job was going to bring to me. I was hired on a one-year contract to fix a specific problem related to inventory management. I was hired by the vice president of Finance and the data processing manager to solve a problem in the parts department. Well, some things never change; the general parts manager didn't think it was worthwhile to even meet me let alone talk to me. My co-workers were fantastic: Hilda and Hazel – I kid you not. As I think back, I have to say it was a little difficult to understand much at the time. So I was obedient. I listened and learned and worked. I think the youth of today are exactly the same with one major exception – they will not sit around and wait. If they don't think they are learning they will look for other opportunities. I think that is a good thing. It will force management and supervision to learn to understand these new workers and to lead them in a manner that will excite them about working for a dealership and prepare them for their career in our industry. Other Challenges The second thing troubling me is a little more difficult to get done. The inventor Dean Kamen, who created the Segway, suggested that, "Innovation needs to be nurtured throughout an organization. Management is doing things right whereas leadership is doing the right things." We seem to be focused exclusively on doing things right, while we spend less time doing the right thing. We are working in the business, not on the business. Let me give you some ideas of what I mean. We still do not cover our marketplace adequately in the parts and service arena. If we assign an individual to "touch" only 50 percent of the customers in your trading area, how do we hope to either increase the level of business, much less retain current customers? If we persist in charging journeyman rates for maintenance services how can we expect to increase market share in this area? If we do not begin to develop our own technicians how can we hope to maintain our level of business in the service department when, in many cases, more than half of our technicians are over the age of 50? How can we hope to increase the parts business without identifying which customers do not by what family of parts from us – and trying to rectify that situation with a sales call to the customer? Why is our parts inventory stock in the range of three to four times a year when the replenishment cycle to replace inventory on a stock order is less than a week? Why do we tolerate 80 percent or more of work orders being closed in the last week of a month? Why do we continue to have more than a third of our parts inventory in dollars that has not met our stocking criteria? We need to get these fixed so that we can get on to the real work. By real work I mean serving our customers – finding out what it is that they need and want and then delivering solutions. Last month, we completed the AED 2013 Product Support Opportunities Handbook, which contains survey data from customers. These results show that the demographics of our customer are changing, but they also show that their needs and wants are amazingly similar to both preceding surveys of 2007 and 2002. In fact, this is what prompted me to write the column this way. Please order a copy of the PDF report, pass it around to all appropriate managers, and then let's begin satisfying those customer needs. The choice is yours. The time is now. RON SLEE (ron@rjslee.com) is the founder of R.J. Slee & Associates, Rancho Mirage, Calif., celebrating more than 30 years in business in the United States, a consulting firm that specializes in dealership operations. Ron also operates Quest Learning Centers, a company that provides training services specializing in product support, and Insight (M&R) Institute, a company that operates and facilitates "Dealer Twenty" Groups. Follow Ron on Twitter: @RonSlee; and read his blog at learningwithoutscars.com. December 2013 | Construction Equipment Distribution | www.cedmag.com | 63

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