Black Box Networking Services' CEO and Chairman Fred Young's advice on how to handle the economic downturn? Assume the impact will be worse than it will be, but don't let it become the scapegoat for all your problems.
Young delivered a keynote address Wednesday at the annual Catalog Conference in Boston. He noted that executives should remember that many of their managers have never worked through anything like the current business environment.
Be flexible and keep the internal channels of communication open, Young advised. "None of this is profound, but the trick is you have to do it every day."
Black Box, which markets B-to-B technology and tech support, was founded in Pittsburgh in 1976 and went public in 1994. It has 154,000 clients in 132 countries, and receives 700,000 orders annually, 92% of which are repeat business. It answers two million customer calls for help each year, with the vast majority of calls connected within 20 seconds.
"We manage 50,000 SKUs every day, but our best product is tech service," said Young.
Customers include American Express, P&G, Motorola, British Airways, First Union and Hewlett Packard. Projected net income for 2001 is $64 million, up from $49 million in 2000.
