We Had Our Best Year Ever in 2021 – and Learned Unforgettable Lessons Along the Way

THOSE WHO HAVE product win. 2021 will always be marked with one of the most severe supply chain shortages in our history. If there was one lesson that we learned in 2021, it was that in a supply chain crisis, those who have materials win the work. We spent a lot of time trying to find ways to improve on our ability to purchase. We found ourselves engaging with many different distributors that we typically didn’t work with in the past. We constantly monitored our vendors’ stock levels and bought strategically. We even went as far as directly contacting manufacturers of materials to find out which distributors were best stocked. Sometimes, we even bought the material from the distributors before it was delivered to their dock.

Gary Schellerer, VP/Partner, ER2 Image Group

Take care of your employees and they will take care of you. Funny how quickly we went from “Fifth week of furloughs” to record-level hiring for our company. The swing of business for us from 2020 to 2021 was breathtaking. Never have we seen such a swing from one extreme to the other. Of course, our struggles to get jobs in quickly turned into challenges to get jobs out. My advice to myself in 2022 is make sure to stay competitive in our employment. Regular increases, bonuses, and re-imagined benefits are all things we now feel will be essential for our HR success moving forward. Finding and retaining talent has never been more important. Make sure you’re taking care of your staff because it may be difficult to replace talent.

Be a nimble company that’s willing to change. Successful businesses are realizing more than ever that in a changing environment, companies need to know how to change. Change is hard and usually slow. The companies I’ve seen succeed in this crazy environment are the ones that were able to pivot quickly. Obviously, change can be stressful for a company. Usually, the larger and older companies that are sometime set in their ways find it even harder to change. Times like these expose the ability of a company to adapt to their environment. If you asked me in 2020 with half of our business being exhibits and events if we would rebound in 2021, I would probably say “No way.” However, here we are in 2021 with our company’s best year by far!