• • • EDITOR’S INTERVIEW • • • Mr Wheeler conceded that there’s currently a lot


of pressure around pricing and competitiveness. “The markets change a lot and we have to


recognise that we only exist because of our customers business, and our customers’ businesses are changing quite quickly,” he said. “The more that we can keep in tune with our


customer needs, the more that we’re in the right place when they need us; communication and keeping aware of those needs and challenges is key.”


Business evolution


post-pandemic Mr Wheeler said that some of his customers evolved and developed through the pandemic. “We’ve found ourselves in markets that we


weren’t in before,” he said. “The medical sector has grown significantly for customers – it was an active market during the tough times and now they’ve found themselves with a position in that market and we’re able to support that. “Some of our biggest customers that we have


now in value and volumes terms are customers that we didn’t have before the pandemic.”


The staffing challenge Between them, Lane Electronics and Weald Electronics employ 65 people and Mr Wheeler said a big challenge, affecting everyone, is the lack availability of people to fulfil roles. “We are ever-looking for new team members to


join us and that’s a real challenge,” Mr Wheeler said. “We’ve got a great working environment, a great team, and it’s hard to get people to come and join us. “We need new sales team members and people


in the assembly area of our connector company, and it’s tough to get the right people.


“With everything we do, we try to be as proactive


as we can and we think ahead of the game. A lot of the recruitment we need is because we


know we’ll need it new people time. If we can get them now, we can get them in the right place, trained up, fully supportive within the team, by the time we need to evolve into needing them.” Mr Wheeler said a key part of the success of


Lane Electronics is that it has stayed focused on what it can do, how it does it and what it offers. “We sell in high volumes, but we have the


flexibility and ability to be able to work on small quantities, as a connector manufacturer, but then


we back that up as a stockist distributor,” Mr Wheeler said. “One of our proven abilities has been able to


react quickly to the changes that continually happen. We are connector specialists and we only want to be connected specialists. “We will continue to evolve our position in the


market as the go-to-place for connectors and connector accessories. “We will bring more products and we will


inevitably get into further markets as the technology continues to migrate from one market into another.”


electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk


ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • NOVEMBER 2022 15


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