MDM Podcast: Scott Teerlinck Says Transparency Has Keyed Crescent’s Transformation - Modern Distribution Management

MDM Podcast: Scott Teerlinck Says Transparency Has Keyed Crescent’s Transformation

The Crescent Electric Supply leader tells us how employee engagement has kept the distributor pointed at its customer-based North Star.
Crescent box

An MDM Quicktake Podcast we posted on Sept. 8 as a lead-up to last week’s SHIFT: The Future of Distribution Conference discussed the anecdote of a North Star for distributors — a constant principle that distributors can look to during times of uncertainty or as they undergo a business transformation.

Teerlinck

It was a central theme at SHIFT, and emphasized in my recent conversation with Crescent Electric Supply Company president and CEO Scott Teerlinck, who is leading the electrical products distributor through a digital transformation centered around the way customers prefer to buy today. He and his team at CESCO started working on it shortly after he took over the company’s leadership in April 2020, right as the pandemic was shutting down swaths of the industrial economy.

Like Teerlinck, many distribution leaders will tell you that the customer is their North Star, but what I found most interesting about our discussion — which is now our latest MDM Podcast — was what he covered about employee engagement and its vital role amid any business changes. Distributors have so many moving parts of their operation, and alongside a new normal of constant market disruption, it’s hard to get companywide buy-in among a workforce and everyone on the same page. For Crescent — No. 11 on MDM’s 2022 Top Electrical Distributors list with $1.3 billion in 2021 revenue — the key to that buy-in is transparency.

“I can think of nothing else that impacts our success more so than employee engagement,” Teerlinck told me. “As we worked to set our vision and define our North Star, we did so actively gathering feedback from our employees. We hosted one-on-one discussions with dozens of employees at all levels of the business. We hosted town hall meetings to discuss why we win and why we lose.”

I was glad to hear Teerlinck mention that last bit: “…and why we lose.” It’s easy for company leaders to discuss wins and merely glaze over or ignore losses. But as any successful college or professional sports coach will say, you always learn more from losses than wins.

Crescent created a weekly CEO communication that is sent to roughly 1,900 employees, sharing updates on the transformation progress, successes along the way and failures — calling attention to areas where leadership has made a revision or change to its approach.

Change is scary, and as distributors look to keep up with the pace of B2B customers’ evolving buying habits, communicating purpose behind any change is critical, as Teerlinck advised.

“We asked where they would focus attention first, and what areas we should work to improve on,” he said. “Likewise, we asked what areas are the sacred cows that must not be touched or changed. We gathered all of this feedback and organized it, and we were amazed and the consistency and the commonality of input and suggestions.”

Along with transparency, our discussion touched on what it was like for Teerlinck to take over leadership as the pandemic was at its peak, how Crescent has embraced utilizing data analytics and what he was seeing as far as demand trends in the electrical products space entering 2022’s fourth quarter.

Listen to the full podcast with the audio player above, and check out all of our previous MDM Podcast episodes at our webpage for them here.

Related Posts

Share this article

About the Author
Recommended Reading
Leave a Reply

Leave a Comment

Sign Up for the MDM Update Newsletter

The MDM update newsletter is your best source for news and trends in the wholesale distribution industry.

Get the MDM Update Newsletter

Wholesale distribution news and trends delivered right to your inbox.

Sign-up for our free newsletter and get:

  • Up-to-date news in a quick-to-read format
  • Free access to webcasts, podcasts and live events
  • Exclusive whitepapers, research and reports
  • And more!

2

articles left

Want more Premium content from MDM?

Subscribe today and get:

  • New issues twice each month
  • Unlimited access to mdm.com, including 10+ years of archived data
  • Current trends analysis, market data and economic updates
  • Discounts on select store products and events

Subscribe to continue reading

MDM Premium Subscribers get:

  • Unlimited access to MDM.com
  • 1 year digital subscription, with new issues twice a month
  • Trends analysis, market data and quarterly economic updates
  • Deals on select store products and events

1

article
left

You have one free article remaining

Subscribe to MDM Premium to get unlimited access. Your subscription includes:

  • Two new issues a month
  • Access to 10+ years of archived data on mdm.com
  • Quarterly economic updates, trends analysis and market data
  • Store and event discounts

To continue reading, you must be an MDM Premium subscriber.

Join other distribution executives who use MDM Premium to optimize their business. Our insights and analysis help you enter the right new markets, turbocharge your sales and marketing efforts, identify business partners that help you scale, and stay ahead of your competitors.

Register for full access

By providing your email, you agree to receive announcements from us and our partners for our newsletter, events, surveys, and partner resources per MDM Terms & Conditions. You can withdraw consent at any time.

Learn More about Custom Reports

Request a Market Prospector Demo

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.