Executive Interview, Continued from page 49
BSB: What specific subject matter will the RDE sessions cover, and what presenters have you lined up? Schulenburg: It’s really a wide cross-section, everything from hybrid power and platforms with Dave Gruskos to marketing for more sales and profit with Frank Terlep. The marketing class has gotten really strong pre-registration. Looking at business diversification, we brought some folks in from SEMA to talk specifically about that topic on the opening day—and that’s a brand-new segment they’re custom crafting for us. We see that opening-day session as a perfect way to help the people who haven’t been to RDE before figure out how being in that space can help benefit their businesses.
Our headline presentation on Friday will focus on innovation in business. It will be a self-guided panel discussion on how emerging ideas are the lifeblood for your business and how they provide the competitive edge to grow your business and profit margins. The folks on the panel are people who have had great fore- sight and been innovative and have harnessed that to rethink how their business works, how it services their customers and how it handles jobs to differentiate themselves from other businesses in their markets.
BSB: Besides the different sessions and speakers, is there anything else new and excit- ing with RDE this year? Schulenburg: There’s a couple things. One is the return of our sky villa after- hours reception, and that will be on Thursday night. Last year, you had to be an RDE participant to get invited, but this year anyone can register for it by visit- ing
www.semashow.com/scrs. It’s going to be in a different suite this year that will be even more spectacular than the space it was in last year. In fact, it was actually one of Michael Jackson’s favorite spots. We’ve got a couple fun tricks up our sleeves, but I don’t want to give everything away just yet. All I’ll say is that the people who attended the reception last year know the caliber of event it was, the level of people that were there and the networking opportunity it pre- sented. It’s just magical that you get to be in a space that very few people get to see. These are exclusive suites reserved for very special people who are guests of the hotel.
This is the third year for the Repairer Driven Education (RDE) sessions.
We also switched up our SCRS open board meeting this year. We’ve tradition- ally held this meeting in a hotel ballroom somewhere, where it’s set up rather formally and we go through what we’re working on and give some updates to our members. This year, however, we’re making it more unique and fun by holding it after Show hours at our booth on Tuesday evening. This will enable collision repairers who want to learn about SCRS to have the unique experience of doing so on the Show floor after hours without all the crowds. So it’s going to be a little bit like a networking reception but also an open address to our members.
BSB: The hot topic of the year has been PartsTrader. Will there be any discussion of the controversial parts bidding program at RDE? Schulenburg: Obviously that’s going to be part of the update we give at the SCRS open board meeting on the Show floor, primarily because it’s a big focus for our membership. It will also be addressed on Thursday in the RDE session called, “Bid- ding Wars: A Global View on the Possible Economic Impact of Insurer Involve- ment in Parts Procurement,” presented by David Newton-Ross of the Collision Repair Specialists of Australia. David has been doing a lot of research for us both in New Zealand and Australia and getting repairer feedback, so it should be a compel- ling two-hour session that will explain what’s going on globally with the develop-
ment of insurer involvement with parts procurement and bidding platforms. Continued on page 52
50 SEMA Show Daily
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