All Torque's Christmas Closing Scenario

Preston branch will be closing from Friday, the 23rd of December so we can play a bit of cricket.  The re-open date will be Tuesday the 3rd of January, 2012.

During this period, all calls will be transferred to Braeside, where Rob, Gail and Ernie all have the honours of getting up early after New Year's Eve.

Melbourne Cup

If stopping a nation isn't enough, the whole of Melbourne goes to sleep for what amounts to a four-day weekend when the Melbourne Cup comes around every year.  The first Tuesday in November is a major event on Melbourne's calendar and the streets are nearly abandonded during the running of the event.

Traditions abound; such as having a barbecue with friends and family, a cup sweep that the same person seems to win every year, running late to work on Wednesday and Rob drawing the short straw and being the only one to work across both branches of All Torque Transmissions.

Good on ya Rob.

What is the Best Tablet for Business?

No really, I'm asking...

All Torque's [account managers / sales engineers / sales representatives] are traditional salespeople: on the road, in front of customers all day, managing the entire supply process.  As such, catalogues, presentations and information gathering are all done using traditional paper-based media.

Well, the world is turning quickly and information technology follows Moore's Law religiously.  Tablet computers have become the weapon of choice for all businesses on the go, but which is the best one and what apps get the most out of it?

With the iPad holding the high ground and the Playbook and ThinkPad looking to compete at the top end, new offerings like the Kindle Fire are aiming for a different (non-business) market altogether.

We've got a collection of iPhones and Blackberrys to help us on our way at present.  My preference is for the Blackberry with its superior e-mail capability but news about RIM's ongoing viability is always concerning.

Help me out here, people!  Let me know, money no object, what the best tablet for business currently available in Australia is.  Also, let me know when the money is a slight object. 

Out With The Old, In With The New

Well, All Torque Preston's trusty old laptop whirred and fizzed its last noises last week, before keeling over and yelling "Enough!!" Life's Good, claimed the logo on the front of Ol' Faithful, but life turned pretty ugly very quickly as we hurriedly hunted down our last backup dongle. Luckily, it was only from the previous day so there wasn't too much that needed to be recovered.

Crisis management became the catchcry of the day. We organised for a new desktop to be built (something we had in the pipeline anyway, so we just had to bring it forward), whilst a reserve laptop was rushed into temporary service. Photo at left - Greg at work on Ol' Faithful. May he rest in peace.

Our new computer arrived this week and it is FANTASTIC! All of a sudden, our computing power has skyrocketed to today and has made our lives a lot more straightforward. If there was a moral to this story, I would say that keeping up to date with technology may be expensive, but the cost of not doing so is frightening, especially when something goes wrong.

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.

School Holidays - Fantastic!

Well, school holidays are playing havoc with the All Torque roster; with Craig already part way through his break and Greg about to enjoy two weeks on a Pacific island.  Added to this is the bout of flu going around at the moment, with the occasional day off thrown in.

We run a fairly lean operation so any staff shortages require everyone else to step up.  School holidays are great for the flow of traffic in the morning but for some reason there is no equivalent reduction in workload.  Can anyone explain it?