The Power of “One Community” and the Importance of Collaboration, Leadership and Influence

Mar 26, 2020

By Swati Vora-Patel

With the imminent global COVID-19 pandemic, we are all reminded of an important lesson:

“Hardship brings people closer together if you share it” (John Wooden).

We are treading in uncharted waters. The hardships that we’re experiencing in our daily lives at work and home are not felt in solitude — even with physical social distancing measures in place.

Our circle of family, friends and co-workers share our fears, frustrations and hope; there’s comfort in knowing that we are in this together as one community. Our industry has pulled together to collaborate, lead and influence. Here’s how…

Collaboration: As this crisis continues to unfold, it presents an opportunity to recognize the strong collaboration that the electrical industry is exhibiting. Manufacturers, distributors, reps and customers alike have come to increasingly depend on one another to share best practices relating to health and safety, HR and operational efficiencies. You need only to look as far as the countless social posts that industry players are sharing — measures to improve working from home practices, social distancing in workplaces, splitting shifts, etc. It’s encouraging to see this cross-sharing of best practices in our one community. Check out recent industry activities on EFC’s Live Pulse web portal at: www.electrofed.com/coronavirus/ or in French at: www.electrofed.com/coronavirus/

Leadership: I recall a time a few weeks ago, when Electro-Federation Canada’s Board of Directors met to discuss the course of action for our annual conference. This meeting had been held prior to COVID-19 being named a pandemic, so the discussion wasn’t clear cut. The government hadn’t yet issued group restrictions, travel was not yet banned, events were still in motion. Despite this, the Board unanimously decided to postpone the conference to protect the health and safety of members. This was a critical decision at the time, as the EFC Conference yields a national audience of 500 electrical manufacturer, distributor and rep members — but a leadership decision that would mark a wave of other industry event postponements across the continent. All EFC events from now until the end of June have been postponed or cancelled. Stay informed on new dates, once announced: https://www.electrofed.com/events/

Influence: With federal and provincial decisions being introduced on a daily basis, many organizations are in a tailspin as they navigate financial relief opportunities, HR implications, and warehousing and operational restrictions. EFC has been at the forefront of guiding these changes in an effort to influence federal and provincial authorities on decisions that impact our industry — and our members’ businesses.

From EFC’s quick action on corresponding with all provincial premiers in an effort to emphasize our sector as an essential business, to collaborating with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters and other partner associations as a co-signatory on correspondence, EFC is committed to working diligently to support members’ businesses during these trying times.

We are in this together — and will come out of this stronger!

These above examples of collaboration, leadership and influence all lead to one common achievement: our industry is sailin these uncharted waters as a unified community. I remain optimistic that the Canadian Electrical industry is well positioned to come out of this ordeal as a stronger community — let’s continue to share best practices and collaborate. John Wooden’s view that “hardship brings people closer together if you share it” is more important now than ever before.

Swati Vora-Patel is VP, Marketing & Channel Development, Electro-Federation Canada.

Industry Must Transform. Here’s a Practical Recommendation

By Jean-Pascal Tricoire

The challenges facing industry at the moment are tough: supply chain disruptions, recurring lockdowns and lingering travel restrictions, to name just a few. We’re all trying to find the balance between overcoming these challenges while working to a future where we are more resilient, sustainable and efficient.

But today’s efforts are not enough. We’re being too conservative. More of our collective energy needs to be spent on the practical “how” — the “how can we get there with immediate actions.”

Rittal Celebrates 60 Years Globally: From Steel Manufacturer to an International Global Company

Rittal It is April 1, 1961, when an international success story begins in a small weaving mill in central Hesse — the standardization of enclosures. Rudolf Loh founds the Rittal company and changes the industry with one idea. The standard enclosure is used in millions of product solutions in over 90% of all industries worldwide. Rittal is the innovation and world market leader for enclosure technology and IT infrastructure.

10,000 employees worldwide work on new innovations, industry solutions and business models. A small steel manufacturing company has become a global digital enterprise.

The 4 Profit Levers Distributors Need to Master

By David Gordon

Electrical distributors are at a unique moment in time where they have an opportunity to leverage technology to utilize the data it can unleash to accelerate profitability and sales cost-effectively.

Being in an information age is only beneficial if the information is utilized. Enhanced sales models, sales opportunities and servicing systems are combining to help differentiate distributors. Aside from a distribution divide being created by digital and supplier selection, analytics can either widen or tighten the divide.

GDP Rose in January for 9th Month

GDP - January 2021 Real gross domestic product (GDP) rose 0.7% in January, following 0.1% growth in December. This ninth consecutive monthly increase continued to offset the steepest drops on record in Canadian economic activity observed in March and April 2020. However, total economic activity was about 3% below the February level before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both goods-producing (+1.5%) and services-producing (+0.4%) industries were up in January as the 20 industrial sectors were nearly evenly split between expansions and contractions.

By Swati Vora-Patel

April has been a flagship month for new milestones: it has been one full year since many of us began working from home; Zoom and other such virtual platforms have been in play for a year to keep us connected – and the reliance on digital systems has heightened over the past year to populate the influx of online catalogues and eCommerce sites.

April also marks one year since I took over the reins of EFC’s Supply Chain Network to support the electrical industry’s digital transformation journey.

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