Where's Your Lifeboat?By Kim Phelan
Article Date: 06-01-2008
Copyright(C) 2008 Associated Equipment Distributors. All Rights Reserved.
Those are some serious storm clouds out there.
 The rules and the environment have changed and the effects are going to be dramatic. Things are not going to return to how they were.That statement was made by a respected top executive of a manufacturing corporation during the AED Industry Round Table that convened on May 8. His prediction has remained in my mind these several weeks because it sends an icy warning that the troubles of today are going to leave permanent scars on our landscape.You hear dealers and manufacturers alike referring to this business climate as a "Perfect Storm," and you can count on both hands the dark developments that have simultaneously converged upon us: the housing slump, the banking and credit crisis, recession-like economic conditions, shortages of steel and other raw materials; unprecedented fuel prices; skilled labor shortages; crumbling infrastructure and funding reauthorization concerns; politics and all the sordid public policy changes looming over the country; plus myriad business worries such as health care costs and taxes.It's almost too much to drink in, in a single gulp. And if you're brave enough to watch the evening news and contemplate earthquakes, cyclones and other causes of human despair, you do get the picture that the world is, shall we say, way out of whack.Right about now I'm happy to remember another remark from the Industry Round Table - this one interjected from a dealer executive. He said that in every bleak scenario he tries to find a positive. Ok, I can do that.
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