In part 1 of our two-part interview with new Rexel USA CEO Roger Little, we discussed his introduction to the position, feedback he is receiving from employees, the Rexel region structure, and Rexel’s strategy for the electrification of the continent.
In part 2, Little discusses leadership, building the supply chain for the future, digitization, and Rexel’s strategy for mergers and acquisitions.
Q: Let’s pivot just a little bit. I still want to talk about the future, but let’s talk about leadership for the future. Rexel has had a number of people go through the NAED Leadership Development Program; you’ve had a number of people who’ve earned tED magazine’s “30 under 35” awards. Now the generations are changing. As a result, leadership styles have to change. Leadership planning has to change. What are you doing to make sure that there’s a smooth transition from one person to the next? Get me into a little bit of Rexel’s commitment to developing leaders and making sure that you’re ahead of the curve on succession planning, especially with your region structure, to maintain stability.
Little: We have to be very methodical about it. To be honest, when I took the role in Canada it became high on my priority list there, and consequently it’s become a bit of my style to make sure that succession is something we talk about all the time, including making sure we’re exposing the next generation, or the next level of potential managers, and it has to be very deliberate. We do a planning and documenting process that’s pretty rigorous and probably at times feels a little restrictive, but I think without it we will never get to where we need to be. And to your point, if you look at the industry overall, there’s a lot of opportunity for young people coming in. I think there’s excitement now because of the ESG story and the renewables and a lot of these things going on. I think there’s a lot of young folks actually becoming interested, and it might be the electrical industry’s turn. Maybe we’re not the sexy industry that that many of the others are, but I think now with the electrification story, people are quite interested in it. But we have to be very deliberate about it and, to your point, changing the way we operate. The days of “spend five years in this job and then five years in the next job and maybe we’ll talk to you about that next job after that” are ending, and the generation coming in now wants a very clear path and they want it fairly quickly. You want to measure it in our business, so succession planning right down into the branch manager and even beyond that is essential. We used to succession plan executives, and then we got a great idea to go down one more level. We’re down into the branch and warehousing and DC levels, but we’re being very prescriptive about it.
Q: You mentioned it’s not the sexiest of industries, but I look at it from a different angle. There are a lot of really amazing people in this supply chain that work in a variety of roles, and they’ve made a pretty incredible life for themselves. They’re thrilled with what they do every day for work, and they’re financially stable. So what is it going to take to attract those great next generation employees and show off the opportunity we have for them? How do you think we can attract the good people to enter this supply chain and that they are seeing the value we have to offer?
Little: I think it is the wide variety of opportunities you mentioned. We used to be thought of as very much warehousing and distribution, and now we have digital roles that are available and sophisticated supply chain roles that are available. These are very changing, very electronic roles that people are much more interested in. Data scientists are coming into our business. We never used a data scientist 10 years ago and now we have to have them. It’s amazing that there are roles for people that never existed now exist. I think that we have to make sure that message is getting out that the clouds are parting and some of that goodness is coming in. It is about getting that message out. We have to’ll be getting into the universities, and colleges and high schools, wherever it may be and getting that message out. This industry created a fantastic lifestyle when I think about it, so I think getting that message out and having new employees go and speak to the next generation of potential recruits and associates and sharing what they’re seeing. It’s fine for me to tell you as guy who has been here for 30 years, but they’re not going to listen to me. That’s not what they’re interested in. But they would listen to somebody who’s been in the industry for four or five years and has had three great jobs and they’re really excited about their future. That’s what excites people and obviously the “Great Place To Work” designation, that’s a great badge to have, but that, to me, is almost table stakes now with some of these recruits. They expect that.
Q: You mentioned that cool people want to work with cool toys, and you mentioned digital and being a digitally and data-based company. So get me into a little bit more of the digitization of the company in terms of what you’ve done or what you’re planning to do to make sure that all the data that you’re receiving gets put to gets put to use. And then tell me about how that impacts these young new employees so they can use these cool tools as you move Rexel into the future.
Little: It’s every part of our business. We have to look at digitization so it’s obvious is the customer experience from the omnichannel or web shops or apps or EDI or OCR to EDI. That’s one part of it, but if you think of all the other parts of our business whether it be the warehousing with WMS and TMS, whether it be procurement in some of the great forecasting and procurement tools that we now use. We now use either automation or digital in every part of our business, and if we’re not today it’s already on the books for tomorrow or it’s being worked on or launched as we speak. That’s really where we’re seeing the next investments. It’s not the obvious digital spend, but it’s every other piece of our business and some of it is very monotonous. If you think about non-trade payables and you know paying the folks that cut the lawn and remove the snow in northern states. It’s just a monotonous amount of paperwork that typically was hand keyed, and now can all be automated where we’ve got some great tools to do that right. Those jobs that were not very sexy, not very appealing, and they are gone and now they’re digital jobs.
Q: Let’s get into a little bit of the M&A situation. I woke up this morning and found out that Nippon Steel bought US Steel, which is an iconic American company and has been around forever. It just shows you that anything is possible in the mergers and acquisitions world, and you just never know what’s going to happen next. So, give me a little bit of a snapshot into the Rexel USA expansion plan. Is it expanding locations? Is it you’re looking at merger and acquisition opportunities? Or is it a combination of both?
Little: The short answer is yes and yes. We’ll do organic and we’ll do M&A. I think the organic is very much about expanding what’s worked great in some areas and we have put it into other areas. Electrification is a great deal, a great arm of that, but we have that utility businesses in some areas and not other areas. We have data businesses in some areas and not in others. So, we’re going to have to expand and make sure we look a little more unified across the entire network. And then as you know we’ve acquired companies in the past with expertise. We’re taking the best of those and making it more the Rexel DNA. So that’s the organic side. And then the pure M&A, I mean obviously lots of opportunity today. There’s an announcement every week in the United States of somebody acquiring somebody else. We’re working on several and expect to continue our M&A ways. We’ve had some great M&A over the last couple of years in the US, and our board is very, very supportive, if not demanding, of M&A. That’s exciting to me. It’s something I enjoy doing. Something I’ve done quite a bit of. I’ve tried to always do one M&A a year when I was in the CEO role in Canada, and I’d like to double or triple down on that in the US.