WARREN — REM Electronics supplies large medical and transportation companies that were deemed essential businesses in the pandemic
In June 2020, the company determined a need to adjust its budgets and daily operations of its sales team. It lowered its sales projections for the year and postponed a renovation project until later in 2021, says President Janet Dyer.
“I am proud to say that we beat those lowered projections by year end,” Dyer says. “I am most proud of how well our team of employees navigated and are still navigating through this pandemic.”
Neither employees nor their immediate families have been impacted by COVID-19, she says. The company works to keep the workplace safe and follows CDC guidelines.
REM’s sales team made the biggest adjustments. In addition to connecting with customers via Zoom, email and phone, employees went “old school” and developed mailings for current and potential customers, Dyer says.
“The relationships between our outside and inside sales people became tighter as the inside folks researched new possible customers,” she says. “Through these efforts, our Pennsylvania salesperson was led to a potential new customer for our manufacturing side of the business. He and our vice president worked together with their engineers and quickly secured a substantial new customer.”
Those efforts produced a “substantial new customer” in Ohio on the distribution side, she notes.
Despite a slowdown in business, no employees were laid off and no layoffs are anticipated this year, Dyer says. This year, she anticipates 10% increases in both distribution and manufacturing.
The company also invested in a 3D printer, which Dyer says will be a “game changer.” In two weeks, REM was delivering product samples it hadn’t built before.
Dyer commends her team for working together and staying positive through 2020. “Every single person in our company kept doing their job every day, and we continued to encourage each other every day,” she says.