BOSTON — Concord Electric Supply (City Electric Supply — CES) is focusing on growing its presence in Boston where residential electricians make up a large portion of its customer base. Three branches are opening in Needham, Wareham, and Gardner this month, and a fourth location is projected to open in Nantucket this summer.
CES currently operates 470 locations in 30 states across the nation. With so many new branches, territories will purposely overlap between CES locations.
As the residential market in Boston continues to grow, CES is opening locations to fit the needs of a construction-heavy city, which affords more job opportunities in the electrical wholesale industry. Closing the distance between branches will allow for better stock transport, faster delivery, and more consistent customer service and pricing for both new and existing CES customers.
“We’d love to open more locations in the Boston area this year, but it’s about finding the right people to staff the branches with the industry knowledge, customer service skills, and the experience,” said Boston South District Manager Jeremy Higgins. “I’d like to open another location this year if possible.”
Concord Electric Supply grows organically, which means that new locations are added when the right talent is in the right place at the right time. This creates endless career opportunities in the area while ensuring that customers always receive top-level customer service and consistency from professionals who know the industry.
“The goal is to have around a 30-minute driving distance between locations. Customers can stop by in the morning and get the supplies they need to do the job for the day. If they need anything to complete their work, we’re there for them,” Higgins said.
Of the four new branches opening in 2019, three branch managers were promoted from within the company. CES often promotes its employees from within and spends time and resources training employees for their new roles.
“We like to invest in our employees, and we want them to grow with us,” Higgins said. “As an example, for the Wareham branch, we took a counter person and promoted him to a sales position. We took a warehouse guy and promoted him to an operations manager.”
When it comes to choosing new locations for CES branches, some district managers will hire a branch manager with the right experience, and then decide where the greatest need is, or what territory needs more coverage.
“We put a lot of trust in our branch managers because they have so much autonomy to run their branches,” Boston Central District Manager John Russell said. “Finding the right people to run them is key. Oftentimes, we will work with the branch managers to pick a location as they have local insights that we don’t as far as what the best locations are and where the customers go.”
The outlook for electrical wholesale suppliers in Boston is promising as residential construction continues to be a driving force in the market. With district managers continuing to look for new locations nearby in the upcoming year, Southern New Hampshire may be another opportunity for growth.
“I think we could open another 40 or 50 locations in Massachusetts if we can find the right people,” Boston North District Manager Mike Gaspar said. “There is so much opportunity in this city for potential growth,” Mike said. “Everyone who starts with us is given the tools to be promoted within the company if they want it.”
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