The History of Gescan

Mar 23, 2018

In 1952, Canadian General Electric Co. Ltd. established a distribution business, which began life in January 1953 as its Wholesale Department.

Its purpose was to stock and sell CGE manufactured products and a few complementary and supplementary lines. Its customers were those who had previously done business with CGE, including independent distributors.

Although the Wholesale Department performed all of the normal services and functions of an independent distributor, it was largely a pooled sales operation, performing direct selling functions for the CGE manufacturing departments and it was staffed mainly from the CGE Supply Sales Department. The Wholesale Department became the custodian and operator of all of the offices and warehouses from St. John’s, NL to Victoria, BC and in the mid 1950s added several locations and replaced some older units.

In the 1950s all CGE departments were domiciled in these districts and branch locations, and the Wholesale Department was landlord as well as a provider of distribution services to other departments. From this complicated beginning, over many years, a distributor evolved. The evolution was the result of both internal and external forces, the internal forces being the decentralization of businesses, in which Canadian General Electric was a leader. The external forces were several.

In recognition of its multi-function activity, the Wholesale Department in 1966 was renamed the Sales and Distribution Department and subsequently in 1972, the Supply Sales and Distribution Department.

During this period the S&D and SS&D Departments performed three major functions: acting as an independent distributor, providing pooled sales on behalf of certain CGE departments, and performing a full distribution function for some CGE departments. In addition, the department continued to act as a landlord in providing domicile for several company departments.

Industry continued to evolve, as did CGE, and the 1970s brought about organizational changes that resulted in the formation of GESCAN, in August 1974, as a pure independent distributor representing CGE departments and more than 100 non-CGE suppliers. The non-CGE suppliers, for the first time, represented more than 50% of sales.
The proportion of non-CGE sales continued to increase as the company reduced its manufacturing activities in construction products until the proportion exceeded 80%. At this stage, CGE deemed that their objectives were better served if their investment in the distribution business were diverted into other avenues more in tune with their strategic plan.

Given the opportunity, in 1983 CGE sold their GESCAN regional operations to BRE in the west, Guillevin International in Ontario and Quebec, and Harris & Roome in the Maritimes. Thus ended CGE’s presence in the electrical distribution business, a tenure of 79 years as a multi branch sales and distribution operation.