Electrograph, the Electronic Titanic Ship of dreams, sinks… closes its doors AND liquidates.

"The  EG Titanic with its super fast new engines and its ego driven need for speed- that was its demise".

May 2009. By Digital Signage Forum Founder Lisa Jachimowicz 

  We are pretty surprised about how quiet this news has been but last week (on May 29^th) Electrograph released their official press release  that they will be closing its doors forever.

  Alan Marc Smith, Electrograph’s outgoing CEO said, “We are very disappointed with this outcome. There were a number of factors leading to this result including poor economic conditions and constrained access to vendor credit. After exploring all other possible avenues for sustaining the company, including   an unsuccessful sale process, our board decided this was the only path for our company.”

  I can’t help it, but this story reminds me of the Titanic with its super fast new engines and its ego driven need for speed that was its demise. This will undoubtedly change the distribution channels and should make resellers carefully choose suppliers who (moving forward) are in it for the long haul.

    But... How will this affect the Digital Signage Industry?

  Big display manufactures might need to cozy up to some smaller and medium distributors to allow for some credit lines and renew the spirit of customer service.  Distributors desperately need expedient tracking and comprehensive pricing from the manufactures in order to service some online entities AND brick and mortar companies.  These enhanced services allow for the dealer to service their customers in a timely fashion and adhere to credit card rules (yes, it all runs downhill).

The good news is that current distributors might need to potentially embrace some positive changes and gear up for extended inquiries for products, especially for industrial/commercial screens (which digital signage dealers should be using for projects anyway-no consumer screens!) and gear up marketing to these folks who might be caught in mid project with quotes. But, with plans like this it is also important to be very reasonable with your execution plan due to the amount of liquidation hardware that is going to be available.

 Solid distributors should also be looking at employing some of the very talented account managers that are located in the Pacific Northwest of Washington State. This would allow for a transition of accounts and service to these clients because they ( the account mangers) know them well, and historically they came from the good distribution model before they were bought out by Electrograph.

     What can we all learn from this?

That continuous greed of buyouts is not necessarily a great thing.
In these economic times dealers should always have a back up emergency plan for situations like this. Learn to research current suppliers to make sure that they are not shutting down supply divisions critical to your businesses well-being and existence.
Keep your resume up-to date.
There is no room for arrogance.
Customer Service will always come first.
Form strong relationships as you do not know where you or your critical contacts will end up next.

 

       What do you think of the shut-down? Join the live discussion here!

Update: If you would like to post your employment needs:

          We have opened a new thread on the forum called Employment Wanted free for your use.

     Good Luck!

  The Digital Signage Forum is the leading online community for the Digital Signage Industry. For More Information, please visit us at www.digitalsignageforum.com

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