The 5 Problems that Keep CEOs Up at Night

The 5 Problems that Keep CEOs Up at Night

Originally published by Industry Week 

 Ten years ago, we surveyed manufacturing CEOs to determine what kept them up at night. Coming on the heels of the Great Recession, concerns about another economic downturn were naturally top of mind. Worries about supply chain challenges—in the aftermath of the first significant global supply chain disruption and the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March 2011—were second. 

We informally surveyed CEOs again this October to gauge their current pain points. Following is a snapshot of top-ranked concerns facing U.S. manufacturing leaders toward the end of 2021.

  1. Talent recruitment and retention. No surprise here—unless you were expecting No. 1 to be supply chain disruptions. What was once a concern is now a crisis. Not only were there almost 900,000 job openings in manufacturing in the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, or about 9% of all private openings, but more than 300,000 manufacturing employees quit their jobs each month this summer. The Great Resignation is altering the global work landscape. On top of the struggle to attract younger workers—those with STEM skills and a general interest in mechanical and technical careers—manufacturers now have to deal with changing generational perceptions of work overall. Millennials and Gen Z are predicted to make up 30% of total employment by 2030.   

     

  2. Global supply chain disruptions. Hiccups in the production and distribution of materials, components and products have become the norm with the rise of global value chains. But today’s crisis, of course, is no hiccup: Jammed ports and supply bottlenecks have been the rule rather than the exception for a year. IHS Markit says that suppliers’ delivery times in the United States and the EU have hit record lengths due to surging demand. Consumer spending on durable goods is up more than 20% in the past year, and widespread supply constraints, including component and labor shortages, exacerbate the issue. In fact, shipping prices from China are up 400% since last year, and wait times for ocean freight up 45%. While some analysts believe that as COVID recedes, capacity constraints and labor shortages will also diminish, IHS Markit says the crunch could last for another 12 months—if not longer.
  3. Commodity and raw material prices. At the heart of much of today’s supply challenge is the shortage of commodities and raw materials, which have driven producer prices up dramatically. It’s hard for manufacturers to plan for growth in the face of unrelenting price spikes. The Federal Reserve’s Global Price Index for All Commodities stands at 167, the highest level in seven years. Moreover, Bloomberg’s index on raw-material spot prices is at a 10-year high. Oil prices are at their highest level since 2014, while according to the Fed, iron and steel prices are at their highest levels ever on the producer price index. Like so many other challenges, this one is not expected to resolve itself any time soon.
  4. Cyber threats. There is one dramatic difference between our CEO survey of 2011 and 2021: rapidly rising concern over cyber-attacks, especially regarding ransomware and malware, that can lead to equipment sabotage and system shutdowns. The Internet of Things has proven to be a dual-edged sword: Networking with the outside world means exposing yourself to the outside world. According to Statista Research and Analysis, there are 10 billion interconnected devices in the world today, which will climb to more than 25 billion by 2030. At least 4 billion are in use across all industries as well as government. This means unless manufacturers turn the clock back to 1990—restricting their employees’ access to email and cell phones and canceling plans to create smart factories and supply chains—their systems are at risk.
  5. General economic and global volatility. Economies across the globe are slowing considerably as the impact of the continuing pandemic (which wave is it now?) continues to plague businesses and consumers worldwide. On top of supply chain disruptions and labor shortages, there’s the specter of inflation. The federal government’s Consumer Price Index for All Urban consumers (CPI-U) is up 5.4% year over year, and according to the United Nations, global food prices are up 33% in the last 12 months. Adjusted for inflation and annualized, food prices around the world are at their highest level since 1960.

And yet … according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, after declining 5% in 2020, corporate profits were up 5% in the first quarter and more than 10% in the second quarter of 2021. Not too shabby considering the growing list of business concerns.   

Stephen Gold is president and CEO, Manufacturers Alliance

PivotCX on the Converge Coffee Podcast: RevOps Methodology in Recruiting

PivotCX on the Converge Coffee Podcast: RevOps Methodology in Recruiting

Overview

Mike Seidle joins Sean Sullivan of the Converge Coffee Podcast to go deeper into the experience of pivoting a company towards clients’ needs and finding success after COVID.

Mike explains how the company focused in on key recruiting metrics. Mike shares insights on how PivotCX uses a revenue operations (rev ops) methodology to deliver the key metrics and overall scalability for their clients. Mike’s focused yet passionate tone shows how much he loves helping the company, clients, and partners succeed. He even gives some insight on messaging platforms and the progression of sales to revenue operations over the last 20 years.

Links in this episode:

LinkedIn: @IndyMike (Mike Seidle) 

Converge Coffee podcast: Converge Coffee

Thankful for 2021: How COVID put PivotCX on the Path to Success

Thankful for 2021: How COVID put PivotCX on the Path to Success

With so much uncertainty due to the pandemic at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, it would have been hard to believe the year we’ve had and even harder to acknowledge that at this point, I would be thankful for 2021 and how COVID put PivotCX on the path to success.

The Beginning of the End…

 Last March, my start-up PivotCX (formerly known as WorkHere), had an awful, terrible, horrible month.

When COVID-19 hit, we lost 85% of our revenue. 

It was a business nightmare! I dreaded answering the phone. One after another, customers would call, apologize for canceling, and blame the pandemic — nothing else we could do about it.

But why? Our software was terrible. It was so bad we had started a live chat service to operate the software, so our customers didn’t have to. I thought long and hard about shutting it down. 

Things were so uncertain in April of 2020; no one knew what would happen with COVID. At the time, there were no vaccines and even fewer answers.

All but three of our best long-term accounts left us. Then, our VP of Sales and CTO both left the company.  

To make matters worse, we were close to running out of money. I had to shift gears and build new software since we didn’t have money for a development team. 

Looking back on it, I’m not surprised by the cancellations. Our product was a poorly executed “Yelp for Jobs,” and it was 100% extra during the pandemic. The company was in zombie mode; churn numbers were high, and the product delivered little value versus every other job board. 

Salvageable Pieces

Consequently, we talked to the three accounts that stayed onboard. In all cases, the customer used our live human chat service to engage job applicants right after applying. Just think, you apply on Indeed, and you get a text message a few seconds later and can immediately talk to someone about your application. The service wasn’t sexy: it was high touch, and everyone was in love with AI and chatbots.

As I talked to these three customers, three themes came out:

  • First, our service was critical to our customer’s business in the pandemic. 
  • Second, our customers were saving incredible amounts of time by having our chat teams handle everything from application to interview.
  • And last of all, EVERYONE liked having live people the candidates could talk to and ask questions. It was a huge competitive advantage for our customers and it helped them differentiate them from their competitors who deployed chatbots.

On the Path to Success

Instead of closing down, my remaining cofounder, Howard Bates, and I decided we would take the rest of 2020 to make new software and see if we could make something great happen.

To put PivotCX on a path to success, we scraped together enough to hire a junior developer. Then we decided to build our new software by working closely with our three remaining customers. They told us what they needed, and we built it. 

By January of this year, we had $5,300 in revenue.  Our expenses were nearly four and a half times revenue. We only had a few months of runway left.  Our software was almost ready. 

 So, we did what any self-respecting entrepreneurs would do: hit the launch button

What a launch it was!

By July, we had hit $50,000 in monthly revenue.

In October, we were at $80,000. 

We’re now closing in on our first $100,000 month.

2021 has been nothing short of a miracle. Every day it feels like we are zeroing in on something special. It turns out enabling a better experience from apply-to-hi, and hi-to-hired for recruiters and job seekers is game-changing. 

COVID-19 provided us an opportunity to shift our focus, and put PivotCX on the path to success, but without listening to our customers, we could not have made it.

To the customers that stayed with us, Thank You for inspiring and guiding us.