Business View Oceania | December 2019

111 112 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA DECEMBER 2019 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA DECEMBER 2019 any sort of steel support products or electrical and mechanical supports in the nuclear business. Our employees, led by QA Manager Kurt Esterhuyse and Office Manager Mati Saar, work hard each and every day to provide excellent customer service and maintain the good customer relations that we have cultivated throughout the years.” There is constant pricing and competitive pressure coming from all areas of the business, and new competitors are popping up all the time. Hughes relates, “We have changed our focus a bit in the last few years, from being more of an outside- sales-based company to becoming an inside-sales- based company. With the population growth and infrastructure pressures across North America, outside sales representatives can see fewer and fewer customers in a day, due to congestion and potentially wasted time sitting in traffic. Further, many people no longer have the time to see outside sales reps, as the pace of business in the past number of years has created time constraints within their own working environments. Finally, with the growth of the Internet and on-line marketing, LinkedIn, Facebook and different social media platforms, nearly all customers across the various spectrums of our business are more educated today than they were, say, five or ten years ago. By the time they look up a product and call in to our office, they already know much more than they used to about what it is that they’re looking for. This has led UCCI and UCCSC to change our focus on how we go to market with our customer base. “We have invested heavily in hiring and training very good inside sales representatives, account managers, and support staff. We have a whole team of inside technical sales reps that work very hard to help in all aspects of a customer’s needs when they call in, and to keep those customers coming back. We offer same day quotations and drawings within 24 to 48 hours. It is mandated across the companies for somebody to get back to a customer within two hours of an initial inquiry. Going forward, we’ve focused our business advertising on various social media platforms such as Google Ads and LinkedIn as opposed to printed ads. In the next five years, we see this trend only increasing - more inside sales reps, more inside technical people, and more engineers to help get our various products specified. “Although this is not a family business, we run it like it is a family business. I learned, early on, to always treat people – employees, customers, and suppliers – the same way you would want to be treated. I’ve worked very hard to make that a reality, and all our staff works hard to do so across both companies. “UCCI and UCCSC have a very low employee turnover rate. We do our best to attract and retain good talent and try to keep employees here for a long time. In over 24 years of business, there have only ever been 61 employees on the payroll of UCCI, including the 17 presently employed here today. In Canada, everybody participates in a group retirement savings plan (RRSP), where we match employee contributions dollar-for-dollar. We have a comprehensive extended health care plan, offer generous vacation days, and sick leave. Each year, employees along with their spouses, attend a weekend Christmas party getaway, usually to a different location, fully paid for by UCCI and UCCSC. “In addition, we treat our suppliers, bankers, and accounting partners with the same respect. We are honest, we pay our bills on time, and we are debt-free, all of which has allowed us to keep the company in very solid financial shape over the last 24 years. It is our sincere belief that that these values have helped to shape UCC Industries International and UCC Steelwork Connections into the successful companies that they are today, and we hope for many years of future success together.” UCC INDUSTR I ES INTERNAT IONAL PREFERRED VENDOR n James C. White Company, Inc. www.jcwco.com