Monday 1 August 2011

The Various Skills Requirements in Mechanical Power Transmission Supply

The mechanical power transmission industry is very specialised, to the point where there is not a lot of crossover from other industries when sales is the key outcome.

Traditional methodology in recruiting people for the PT supply industry saw businesses training youngsters from scratch; giving them a solid grounding in every aspect of the sales process and developing product knowledge all the while.  This is, however, a rather costly and time-consuming exercise, especially when the individual is not able to make the transition to becoming an effective salesperson.

Another school of thought has been to recruit ex-tradespeople (or those with either an electrical or mechanical engineering degree).  This has also proven to be a bit hit-or-miss, as many skills required to be an effective engineer have little bearing on becoming an effective supplier.  There is also the added disincentive of having to match equivalent wages which are invariably quite high.

Product knowledge is always of prime importance (as it is in most industries) but simply knowing your own product range is not enough:  a solid understanding of all available supply options to a specific problem is required.  This sort of understanding takes at least ten years to develop to an acceptable state, with three to five years a bare minimum.

Understanding customer requirements is just as difficult as knowing how to fulfill them, at times.  This also takes a long time to harness and is one of the areas that the degree-holders have an advantage.

Good salespeople are very thin on the ground in the mechanical power transmission industry.  The WA and Queensland mining boom only continues to draw evermore human resources.

1 comment:

  1. Well, Australia is demanding even more workers for the mining industry so I think this problem will go on for a while yet.

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