 This year's event attracted more than 600 professionals |
Over 600 materials handling professionals converged on San Antonio, Texas this week for the annual Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association (MHEDA) convention. This year's theme of "Culture That Rocks!" was addressed by a variety of nationally known experts, including a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official, a former Hard Rock International employee trainer and a former advertising strategist.
Three MHEDA members also spoke of their own experiences regarding company culture, how to grow your business and working with family.
Attendees got all the latest information on industry trends and best practices relating to management, recruiting, selling, demographics, technology and values to help improve operations and, most importantly, impact the bottom line.
Herb Meyer, formerly of the US Central Intelligence Agency, gave a very optimistic presentation on current trends in politics, economics and culture that have an impact on every business. His research shows there are 50 million to 100 million people being brought out of poverty every year thanks to an improved global economy. This alone will provide many growth opportunities for businesses. Meyer believes that despite all of today's trouble and turbulence, particularly in the Middle East, the future will be safer and more prosperous than the doom-and-gloomers are predicting.
Representatives from CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. (EMSI) described the challenges companies face in hiring and the importance of workforce planning. They also provided details on what the recruitment landscape will look like for forklift technicians and sales engineers over the next five years.
Mark Dancer, author and vice president of global channel management at Henkel Corporation, shared important content from his books,
Getting the Most Out of CRM: Best Practices for Wholesaler-Distributors and
Becoming a Digital Distributor: Strategies and Tools That Create Value.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a system for managing a company's interactions with current and future customers, using technology to organise, automate, and synchronise sales, marketing, customer service and technical support. Through conversations with hundreds of wholesaler/distributors, Dancer has come up with very practical organisational solutions to drive business results, improve the sales experience and deliver a high-impact customer experience. He believes the best results are often gained when a CRM system is designed to work with distributor e-commerce, social media, data and analytics, mobility and multichannel sales and marketing.
Elsewhere at the convention, an exhibitors' showcase featured over 80 companies demonstrating all the latest materials handling equipment and supplies.
New this year was a Women in Materials Handling breakfast, as well as an Emerging Leaders reception to give young attendees an opportunity to interact