This week, in partnership with the University of the Aftermarket, we offer you an inside look at the Leadership 2.0 experience thanks to participants in this year’s session. Leadership 2.0 is a two-week, residential aftermarket-focused education program hosted by The University of the Aftermarket at Northwood University. The program is designed to develop the leadership and business skills of the next generation of visionary industry professionals. In today’s blog, we hear from Lester Kovacs, director of ideation of Dorman Products.
Wednesday at Leadership 2.0 began with a debate led by Brian Cruickshank that continued from the previous day’s roundtable discussion. We discussed internet resellers’ pricing and the ability to sell branded products for less than the major retailers. More importantly, the point that price is not everything and the service we provide is what differentiates us resonated among the class. As one class member stated, “I live in the fly over states; do you think Amazon cares about overnight delivery in our area?”
As usual, we ended the discussion with key takeaways: disruption creates opportunities and we all have to continue working together to make the industry better.
Next on the agenda was succession planning. It was eye-opening to see how many of us had not thought about the topic and how important it really is. Imagine if your best customer had to close shop due to lack of a succession plan. How would that affect your business? By the look on the faces in the room, we had just learned a very valuable lesson. In addition, lack of succession planning also lends to consolidation in the aftermarket. These businesses are usually acquired by larger organizations and can present challenges and opportunities for all of us.
Finally, we were assigned a case study about a once profitable repair shop business that was now hanging on for dear life. We eagerly broke off into our assigned groups and worked diligently, utilizing knowledge from the course to address the core issues and make specific tactical recommendations to help this struggling organization. As a result, we all shared our findings and were impressed at the outcome and the different perspectives from everyone represented in the room. It was awesome to see everyone working together with varying types of experience applying the practical knowledge learned in the course and the years of experience on the job.
Another great day at Leadership 2.0!
If you missed Blog 3 from Ryan Stuver, click here.
