Transitions
By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 9/6/2004
There is an old bromide that “the only thing permanent about life is change.”
That really hit home to this reporter in last week. Three stories broke in this business, one about an organization I have covered and the other two of them involve people I've known for years.
BrandSource is the organization, the old Associated Volume Buyers buying group which celebrated its 35th anniversary in Las Vegas last week. I've been going to the late summer meeting of that group since 1994, when Bob Lawrence took over as executive director.
The group didn't know at the time but that year marked its rebirth with the appointment of Lawrence, who came over from the vendor side of the majap business. At that time AVB members were really “appliance/electronics dealers.” When I naively asked Lawrence at the 1994 show if his dealers were interested in carrying PCs, he exclaimed, “Please, I'm trying to get some of my members to carry color TVs and VCRs! They've abandoned the category!”
Well, a few years later Lawrence and his team introduced BrandSource, a branding concept for all of his members, to make group seem like it was a national chain... of independents. Revolutionary? Yes. Today, a decade later, the group is known as BrandSource and for consumers it is now the fifth most recognized retail brand in CE, and the fourth in appliances. Congratulations to Bob, Jim Ristow and the rest of the BrandSource team.
A guy who was a speaker at that 1994 meeting, a fellow Brooklynite, greeted me by saying, “Steve! What the hell are you doin' here?” He is industry legend Harry Elias who was there preaching his typical sermon, which is a simple one. Everyone in this industry, dealers and vendors, should be interested in profit and value, not just volume, and attempt to sell up and not wallow in commodity sales.
Aside from being the most photographed executive in the CE industry (Yes, we at TWICE are guilty of helping him attain that record) there's more to Harry than that. He was at the AVB meeting because his customers were there. He never earned an MBA, but he learned a few things in the College of Hard Knocks that never go out of style: Keep close to your current and future customers; run your company as lean as possible, emphasizing profit not only for your company, but for your customers; and, since you have been fortunate to make a good living, give back to your community. He has supported over the years the Anti-Defamation League, the United Jewish Appeal and many more charities.
While Harry will spend more time with his beloved wife Gladys when he leaves JVC at the end of the year, he wants to share his expertise with other companies both large and small. I say, take him up on his offer.
And as you probably know by now Terry O'Flynn, a veteran CE executive with Mitsubishi and Recoton, died at age 60. Always full of life, with a positive attitude he was a consummate professional in good times and in bad.Terry shared his time and expertise as a member of CEA committees over the years. The first time I interviewed him I had a leisurely breakfast with him one morning during Winter CES in the late 1980s.
Ever since then he was an industry friend and a straight-shooter that I could always turn to if he could clarify an industry issue or a story that I was working on. He was an absolute pro and left us far too soon. He will be missed. Our condolences and prayers go to his wife and family.
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