January 16, 2013
Jeanne Beacham, President, Delphon Industries
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Jeanne Beacham, President, Delphon Industries
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What
will 2013 hold? There are so many viewpoints... Most say it will be the same as
2012 with consumer confidence improving, unemployment remaining high in the 7%
range, and low interest rates! The semiconductor / high tech industry will
continue to grow with numbers in the 5-10%. Some people call those low, but
most industries call them a great year and so should we!!
What
will Delphon being doing? Taking advantage of the low interest rates by making
investments in new equipment, new facilities and acquisitions. Divisions
Quik-Pak and Gel-Pak will be launching more new products in 2013 than any other
year in our history as we grew our R&D efforts substantially in 2012.
Delphon
is going to continue to invest in the most important asset. people, with key
strategic hires. Interesting enough, despite the high unemployment rate it is
still quite difficult to get quality technical and senior managers who are not expecting
the Facebook kind of payouts. The industry still needs to improve its diversity
and excite the new young minds to look at career opportunities in
manufacturing!!
As those who know me, I am a true optimist
and I believe there are many areas with huge growth potential. Other parts of
the world are in much worse shape than the US
and combined with the energy renaissance happening, the United States
will come out of 2013 stronger and more self-sufficient.
Talking to other small
to mid-size businesses there is a lot of excitement about opportunities and
growth since we all made the hard management decisions several years ago to cut
expenses and drive productivity and profitability. Now if we can only get our
fearless leaders in the government to do the same. Businesses have successfully
learned to tighten budgets, improve processes and drive sales and therefore now
have the cash and resources to produce new products, hire more people and grow
the economy!
Jeanne Beacham, President
Delphon Industries
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