This is one of my favorite times of the year. College basketball reaches its exciting apex with March Madness, and shortly thereafter the Masters golf tournament is played. And to say that the 2016 presidential election contests for both parties have been highly entertaining is an understatement. We are certainly heading into spring with a full head of steam!
Tomorrow is National Salesperson Day, the first Friday in March when employers are encouraged to recognize the contributions their salespeople make to ensure the continued growth of their businesses. For chemical distributors, salespeople are a pillar of the industry; without all the hard work they do, chemical distribution wouldn’t be possible.
In early February, NACD Vice Chairman and Brown Chemical Co., Inc. President and CEO Doug Brown was one of several global industry representatives to travel to Brussels to sign an agreement forming the International Chemical Trade Association (ICTA), which replaces the International Council of Chemical Trade Associations. In November, when we hosted discussions with numerous international chemical groups at our Annual Meeting in Florida, I asked Doug as our international affairs point person to take up the charge of helping establish this new group. Today, I’m proud to say we have taken the first steps to making international cooperation within the chemical industry even stronger.
Having top notch industry supply chain partners is important to running your business safely, efficiently, and effectively. If you don’t have high-value partners, it makes it that much more difficult to ensure that you make a profit, grow your business, and put more people in your community to work. Part of that equation for many chemical distributors is using a warehouse to store products until they are ready for distribution to customers. Unfortunately, sometimes decisions are made that make sense at the time but ultimately create headaches costing your business time and money.
I recently read an article about employee development where the author cited some very interesting statistics about the importance of offering your employees training opportunities. According to the author, training can play a big role in employee recruitment and retention, especially among younger workers who tend to value their own personal and professional growth over other jobs perks.
Did you know that the business of chemistry touches 96% of all commerce in the United States? Did you also know that chemical distributors generate $30 billion in economic output, employ more than 70,000 people, and contribute $5 billion to the local, state, and national tax base? As these numbers show, chemical distributors play a pivotal role in the U.S. economy and in the supply chain that produces the consumer goods we use every single day.