PM Reflections

Differentiating During Downtimes…

I just finished writing an article for our new AIDC Newsletter that will go out to our customers in May. I figured it was an appropriate topic for here, so I invite you to take a read after the jump…

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Weekend Recharge

Well, it was definitely a slow weekend around our household. The beautiful weather definitely had a part in that. We had our first “real” spring weekend here in southwestern Ontario, which sure was a long time coming.

After a very long and somewhat stressful week in the office, it was a needed respite. The week wasn’t all bad, by any means, but there were some challenges to work through, and the workload was heavier. I had a staff member resign, which meant making sure things were taken care of in that respect too.

The only things I got accomplished this weekend were some of those nagging spring projects around the house, but I’m ready to tackle the next week now. First, though, we’re going to relax for just a bit more and watch a movie that has been on our “to-watch” list for too long - Inside Man - and then I’ll need to rest these old bones after a bit too much outside play with the boys…

Convergence - POS & Security

One of the challenges my PM team has is bringing our different niche solutions together in new ways to enable our customers to branch out within their existing customer base. Two of our key technology areas - Point of Sale and Physical Security - are absolutely perfect for each other. As we see the POS market become a bit more of a commodity market in our business, we need to look at ways to refresh, or energize it. IP cameras (surveillance cameras that run over an IP network) are a pefect mate for POS solutions. Sometimes having a real-life scenario helps when our reps are selling these solutions, and Canadian Security Magazine has written an article with just that angle. This article shows how Home Depot is finding new uses for their security cameras. Video analytics are a big reason for the implementation, as well as human resources and even things like store layouts.

Our team can help with solutions like this involving vendors like Axis Communications, Milestone Systems, and Toshiba Security. If you would like more information on these technologies, feel free to contact me and I can get you in touch with the right people!

The Upcoming National “DNCL”

The National Do Not Call List (DNCL) is supposed to be implemented by September 30, 2008. If you’re not familiar with the DNCL, you can find more information here at the CRTC site. Essentially, though, it’s a registry that will reduce the amount of unsolicited calls from telemarketers that Canadian consumers receive. You can register any number that you use, no matter whether it’s a landline, cellular line or a fax.

Let me tell you…as a person that values the short time I have with my family in the evenings, I have been looking forward to this since the decision was made last December. We receive an average of three calls a night at our house. It’s gotten so bad that we’ve become call screeners at home, always checking the Call Display before answering the phone. Then I got to thinking today while reading up about the DNCL that a good part of our business at SYNNEX is telemarketing! How is this going to affect our business? That got me to digging deeper into the details and I came across the following exemptions from the rules for calls made on behalf of organizations or made for certain purposes as listed below:

• Registered charities
• Political parties
• Candidates of a political party
• Opinion polling firms or market research firms conducting surveys when the call does not involve the sale of a product or service
• general circulation newspapers calling for the purpose of selling a subscription
• to a consumer with an existing business relationship with the organization
• to business consumers

This means that our business should not be affected by this, as we would fall into the last two categories. This does not give companies in any of these categories a free pass to annoy consumers - business or otherwise. The way it works is, organizations that are exempt from the National DNCL must keep their own do not call list. Also, organizations that obtain your consent to call, will be allowed to call you, even if you are registered on the National DNCL.

Although the National DNCL rules and structure may change before it goes into effect, I believe they are on the right track with this. Consumers that want calls from certain markets can allow those calls, while the organizations that seem to be the real root of the problem (you know who you are ) can and will be penalized if caught not adhering to the regulation. September 30, 2008 will be a great day for Canadian households.

Do’s and Don’ts of Staff Recognition

I came across a great article yesterday (ok, well it actually came into my Inbox) written by Jim Clemmer that I thought I’d share here. The article was entitled Recognition Do’s and Don’ts to inspire and energize and was the lead article in the industry e-newsletter, ConnectIT. As most managers, I am constantly looking for tips and ideas on how to improve team performance, morale and productivity. This one definitely hit home with some great suggestions on how to recognize staff for jobs well done, and maybe even more importantly, what to avoid doing…be sure to read Jim’s complete article. You may find, as I did, that you already try to adhere to the “Do” list, but maybe there are a few “Don’t’s” you need to be careful with.

The ones that struck home with me in a big way were:

Do’s

Show appreciation for good tries, pilots, and mistakes that advance organization learning, especially if that experience is shared openly and widely for all to benefit from and build upon.

Recognize people in public or in front of others.

Always deal with performance problems in private.

Keep measurements, improvement progress, and recognition highly visible. Use scoreboards, bulletin boards, voice mail, electronic or printed announcements and the like.

 Don’ts

Don’t just recognize top performers and superhuman efforts. Eighty percent of your people aren’t shining stars, but their solid day-to-day performance keeps your team and organization alive. Even small increases in their energy and enthusiasm will have a dramatic cumulative effect. Develop the habit of looking for incremental performance or improvements that deserve to be recognized. Make this part of your personal improvement plan to strengthen this vital leadership habit.

Don’t compare or contrast teams or individuals.

Don’t use money to try and shape behaviour or boost performance. It rarely works. If you think it has in the past, what happened when you took the carrot away? No doubt, performance slipped and you were left with stimulus-dependent people looking for progressively bigger carrots. Unless people feel compensation and bonus systems are a major block, leave them alone.

One last idea that Jim mentioned that I already did this year for performance reviews was to involve customers and partners and blend their feedback into your plans.

Everyone on a team wants to feel that they are an important part, and recognition is an important ingredient in that recipe. Hopefully this helps us all do it the right way.

Excel Tip #1 - Keeping Track of Worksheets

I was doing some work this afternoon in Excel, and as usual, I found myself with a spreadsheet with way too many worksheet tabs, so I was constantly using the navigation arrows to find the one I needed. Once in a while, this isn’t too bad, but if you’re always working in “worksheet-overloaded” spreadsheets, then it can get very old, very quickly.

The picture above shows what I’m talking about (albeit generically). Well, what I found was actually by accident, when I right-clicked on the worksheet navigation arrows…when you do this, you get a floating list of all the worksheets in your spreadsheet, as pictured below. This can be especially useful if you have given your worksheets long names (I frequently have worksheets with peoples’ full names, or complete company names). Now, if you’re a keyboard shortcut purist, you can also quickly move back and forth through your worksheets by using CTRL-PAGEUP (previous) or CTRL-PAGEDOWN (next).

I hope you found this tip helpful. I will try to make this a regular occurence. If you have ideas you’d like to share, feel free to post them here in a comment, or email them to me (I’ll always give you full credit). We need to remember the tools we use are as much a part of our success as who we are.

Making Conferences Worthwhile

Networking is an important part of anybody’s business life, especially if you are in a sales-related job. Conferences and trade shows can quickly eat up a lot more time and energy than you would expect.

In our business, dealing with multiple vendors and markets, we see more than our fair share of vendor conferences, industry trade shows, and even customer conferences that we are invited (or expected) to participate in, all at various levels (simply attending all the way through having speaking spots).

So how do I, personally, justify the time and monetary expense for each of these?

I look at some pretty simple measurables, actually, since for my team’s participation at these events, it’s all about driving more customers to buy our technologies…

1. Does the event fit our market?
2. Who are the audience? For our business, we want a reseller audience - not end users (since that is who we sell to)
3. What is the goal of the event (for us)? Do we want to bring on new vendors in a space? Are we looking for, say, two new reseller partners in a specific solution area?

Once we’re at an event, there are some other basics to keep to…

• Divide and Conquer - if you have more than one person attending the event, don’t walk the show together! Split up and you will meet more people and get more done! This is also very important at event meals! Other attendees are a bit less guarded while eating, and you may be able to strike up a conversation with your next big customer at the lunch table!
• Attend Breakouts - most events have training, or breakout, sessions…go to these, and participate in the Q&A time at the end. I have had people approach me after sessions simply because I asked a question (usually you give a little introduction as you’re asking…”Hi, Kevin Rowe from SYNNEX…”)
• Business Cards - DON’T FORGET TO TAKE LOTS OF THEM!
• Look at Name Tags - Introduce yourself and call the other person by name - it sets a friendlier tone for the ensuing conversation, and also shows that you are paying attention. Also, if you’re like me and you tend to forget names quickly, repeat their name and use it in the conversation…it’s a simple way to make it stick in your memory
• Follow-Up - after the event, it’s very important to follow-up with a quick email, phone call, or even a hand-written note simply to say you enjoyed the event and meeting them. Take this opportunity to ask what else you can assist them with

These are just a few ideas that I try to use. I’m sure there are many, many more. I hope people take a few moments to comment with some ideas of their own!

Recession-Proof Industries…Really?

This topic came up in a meeting we had recently (more geared towards the sales reps, but still very relevant to the PM types) and it got me thinking. Of course, there is a lot of talk about the US sliding into a recession and although it may not be quite so bad in Canada, there is concern here as well. Whenever we are talking about a slowdown in the economy, sales get concerned about growth targets and how they are going to get there.

The discussion turned to where the focus can be put, as there are some industries that are considered “recession-proof”. A quick search came up with a great list on Wikipedia as follows:

• Medical Services/ Health Care
• Pharmaceuticals
• Necessities: Food/ Grocery stores/ chains
• Cosmetics
• Education
• Entertainment
• Home & Vehicle Repair/ Maintenance
• Home Renovation/ improvement
• Debt Collection
• Tax Preparation/ Simplification
• Career/ Job Search & Life Coaching
• Energy: Electric, Oil, Gas
• Security/ Alarm Service Companies
• Weapons Industry
• Vices: Tobacco, Liquor, Gambling

With the technology spaces that our division serves the reseller community with, and just using this list above, we (and our customers) should be positioned well through a softer economic time. When I look at our markets, at least one of these industries falls into each one.

Auto ID - Used in manufacturing, warehousing and sales/ field automation so any of the above industries can use this technology. In fact, I feel very strongly that companies that do not adopt a better data collection system will fall behind through this tough period. Companies need to rise above the rest and differentiate themselves in slower times, and those that do, win. We have customers with creative solutions to help.

Point Of Sale - The POS market does not just involve replacing a cash register with a PC any more. Grocery, Entertainment, and any other consumer-facing industry above can benefit from looking at their systems that their customers are seeing and using on a day-to-day basis. POS now entails self-service (checkouts or kiosks) portals, mobile computers (table-side service or line-busting come to mind), loyalty programs, digital signage and more.

Card Technology & Physical Security - This one does not need a lot of explanation on why it should do very well during a slowdown. During a recession, crime tends to climb as people tend to have less to spend. Many (if not all) of the above industries can and would benefit from improved security systems, both in surveillance and access control. Resellers should be getting trained on, and talking to their client base about new security technologies that can help them with the age-old problems of theft, claims, and fraud.

Professional Video & Workflow (HD) - You may wonder why I would put pro video in here, as it really only fits into Entertainment from the above list, and even I wonder how Entertainment can remain recession-proof. With the changes in TV signals alone coming (analog signals are being cut off in the US early in 2009, and in 2011 in Canada), broadcasters (I know, I know…only a small segment of entertainment) have no choice but to invest, and once again, those that do it first, and do it right, will benefit.

So, do I believe every single one of these industry segments are completely recession-proof? Not necessarily, but I do think that list is very complete in describing markets that we, and our customers should be focusing on as they are definitely recession-resistant!

Discussion point…do you feel there are other markets/ industries that fit the category of being recession-proof (or -resistant)?

Performance Review Fun

It is annual performance review time company-wide right now. SYNNEX has a great process that I find highly successful in analyzing strong and weak points in staff. It involves a self-review, manager review as well as colleague reviews from peers.

What I find interesting is how different staff react differently to the whole procedure at this time of year. Some shake it off as part of the day-to-day; some get very nervous. There’s also a variety of attitudes towards the increased workload it creates for the managers. I see more stress at that level than I do with other staff.

So what’s my take?

This is my second year being in the “manager” role for the annual performance reviews, and I’ll be the first to admit that last year, I was nervous and stressed as hell! I had to judge my former peers, now as the boss, and it was definitely tough.

This year, I am actually not stressed. I’m looking forward to the actual review, setting some challenging and measurable goals. I know more about the strengths and weaknesses of my team of nine Product Managers now for sure, which, in itself makes me more confident about the whole review process. I am also looking forward to what, to me, is the real intent of the review…helping staff grow in the areas that they are strong in, and coaching on the others. I do not look at the purpose of the performance review to be to dole out a raise. I look at it as an interactive way to better employees and their performance (the merit increase comes to those that earn it). It really helps me spend time with the team on what matters and hone in on where we need to improve as a team.

So, call me strange, but despite the extra work load this brings, I am looking forward to the next month of looking over, reviewing, discussing with staff, and setting the momentum for 2008/ 2009!

Here we go…

Well, this is it. My site. Now what?

I wish I knew 100% what this was going to turn into, but I don’t. As I eluded to in the About Me… page, I’m hoping that this site becomes a repository for other people in the IT distribution industry that face the same questions, challenges and excitement that I do in a Product Management lead role.

Working for a highly-successful, fast-paced company like SYNNEX definitely keeps you on your toes. Always looking for new ideas to help your team succeed is what drives me. Working through challenges is part of the day-to-day…finding the best ways through is what I find exhilarating. Change is constant in my work. Keeping up to the technology, the needs of our customers and vendors, and staff puts a lot of demand on my time, but I hope to be able to keep this site current with pertinent information, trends, ideas that relate to the Product Management role, such as it is in our industry. I will also be sure to make readers aware of any events that our division will be participating in or attending.

I hope you check in often and enjoy the reads as much as I enjoy typing them in. Ideas, suggestions, and yes, even criticism are all welcomed. Simply email me (email address is in the About Me… page above).

I look forward to some great discussions!