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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: Hello, I'm Mario Toniguszi with Canada's podcast. Joining me today is Christian Lead
[00:11] SPEAKER_00: Beater, who is vice president of business development and asset protection at Best
[00:16] SPEAKER_00: by Canada. Thanks, Christian, for joining us today.
[00:20] SPEAKER_00: I'm Mario Scrooze to be talking to you today. Thanks for having me on.
[00:23] SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're going to talk about some tech stuff and how it relates to businesses.
[00:29] SPEAKER_00: Let me just start off by asking you, how can businesses keep their costs down and low?
[00:37] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, sometimes we rush to cost and price is being the primary driver.
[00:45] SPEAKER_01: I think what we have to realize is that unlike perhaps getting a grocery flyer on a Sunday
[00:50] SPEAKER_01: and making a mill plan based on the flyer and prices for the next week, it's slightly
[00:54] SPEAKER_01: different when it comes to your own business and small business and prices are not necessarily
[01:00] SPEAKER_01: value. You may end up spending more on the long run, you know, through repairs and replacement.
[01:05] SPEAKER_01: What we tend to look at is look at the use case of the product you're going to buy.
[01:12] SPEAKER_01: How often is it going to be used? How many hours a day is it portable?
[01:15] SPEAKER_01: And then once you've got that, start to look at options to buy.
[01:20] SPEAKER_01: So something which is really a really good option is looking at refurbished or resetified product.
[01:26] SPEAKER_01: They can be of extremely high value and that good quality.
[01:29] SPEAKER_01: And especially in the case of factory, we certify product.
[01:32] SPEAKER_01: Those are recertified by the manufacturer themselves.
[01:35] SPEAKER_01: So it's a good way of looking at that option.
[01:37] SPEAKER_01: Another thing is, you know, cash flow is king and you know, look at opening accounts on net 30 terms.
[01:45] SPEAKER_01: Consider leasing.
[01:47] SPEAKER_01: A leasing is a great option for your operational expense over 24, 36 months.
[01:53] SPEAKER_01: And then consider your time.
[01:55] SPEAKER_01: You know, time is cost and time is really precious as a small business owner.
[01:59] SPEAKER_01: If you're going to buy perhaps a couple of TV screens and put them up in your business.
[02:04] SPEAKER_01: Is it worth your time to put it up or should you concentrate on your business, your income, your customers,
[02:10] SPEAKER_01: or perhaps have someone like Geek Squad coming into it?
[02:12] SPEAKER_01: So make that evaluation in your head.
[02:15] SPEAKER_01: The best by business specifically to keep costs low for businesses.
[02:20] SPEAKER_01: We created something called hub and the best by business hub is newcomers platform designed for business.
[02:27] SPEAKER_01: And something you won't hear often is free to join.
[02:31] SPEAKER_01: So every business encounter should have a hub account.
[02:34] SPEAKER_01: The beauty of it is you will get business level pricing on products.
[02:38] SPEAKER_01: And that product is the tens of thousands of products of best by house in its core,
[02:43] SPEAKER_01: as well as hundreds of thousands of commercial products.
[02:46] SPEAKER_01: And when it comes to keeping costs low, control has got to be king here.
[02:51] SPEAKER_01: The hub allows you to set up different uses for purchase.
[02:55] SPEAKER_01: It allows you to hard-code ship to addresses and get reporting back from it.
[03:01] SPEAKER_01: So controlling expense is a great way of keeping costs low.
[03:04] SPEAKER_00: Okay, great. So Christian, many small businesses have an issue of keeping up with IT-related problems.
[03:12] SPEAKER_00: And I think we all know that anywhere I've worked, I know there's always been issues with ITs and the issues in employees' space.
[03:23] SPEAKER_00: Because many of them don't have their IT-owned IT departments.
[03:28] SPEAKER_00: And so there's the problems like damage laptops, issues installing antivirus software.
[03:36] SPEAKER_00: What is the best by business do in those situations to help business owners?
[03:45] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're right. So many businesses are just a bit too small to have their own IT teams.
[03:50] SPEAKER_01: And they usually know a person will come in and help them out.
[03:53] SPEAKER_01: But things were tough then, but they got really compounded by the pandemic and everyone shifting to a remote work environment.
[04:01] SPEAKER_01: So when that happened, a best by business what we did was create our remote workforce program.
[04:06] SPEAKER_01: And it's a really a two-pronged approach. It's about deployment to get product to your employees at home,
[04:12] SPEAKER_01: but also support because uptime is what's needed.
[04:17] SPEAKER_01: And how the program works is, we'll work with a customer, with a business owner, and understand their needs.
[04:22] SPEAKER_01: And build a catalog, a private curator catalog, and it could be a choice of a couple of laptops that are approved on monitors and accessories.
[04:31] SPEAKER_01: And then we send an individual email to every employee with their own customized link where they can go and select that product,
[04:39] SPEAKER_01: we'll make sure it's deployed, take care of all communications.
[04:44] SPEAKER_01: And importantly, with the customer, we'll sort of support what you need.
[04:48] SPEAKER_01: So it could be something like our Geeks, what remote support, where we have hundreds of agents who will take over your laptop or desktop and help keep your uptime keep you running,
[04:59] SPEAKER_01: or it could be our extended warranty programs.
[05:01] SPEAKER_01: But having that support for the at-home employee is so incredibly important and it's a real challenge.
[05:08] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
[05:09] SPEAKER_00: So if a business owner is in tech savvy and to be honest, many aren't, right?
[05:15] SPEAKER_00: How can they know which products to select for their own businesses?
[05:21] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a great question.
[05:23] SPEAKER_01: You know, you can look online on the internet and you can look at a hundred articles and get a hundred answers.
[05:28] SPEAKER_01: I always encourage people to call us at Best Buy Business.
[05:31] SPEAKER_01: We have people always standing by and business hours to pick up the phone, listen to your needs, and then help advise you on the right products.
[05:41] SPEAKER_01: And that comes down to your usage and your budget.
[05:44] SPEAKER_01: But also, you know, we have thousands and thousands of customers and we've got a lot of data that supports what sort of product works well in different industries.
[05:55] SPEAKER_01: So we can help you there.
[05:56] SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, going to one of our stores, our blue shirts in store are extremely knowledgeable and experienced and they'll help guide you.
[06:05] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[06:05] SPEAKER_00: So when we're looking at products, you know, what's the difference for a business owner between a retail laptop or monitor and a commercial grade laptop or monitor?
[06:17] SPEAKER_00: Like which one is recommended for business use?
[06:21] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this question comes up a lot.
[06:23] SPEAKER_01: And in fact, we're to start with monitor.
[06:26] SPEAKER_01: I like to look at the biggest monitor is really the digital signage panel.
[06:30] SPEAKER_01: And that's the one that really explains that story.
[06:33] SPEAKER_01: Well, quite often we'll have small business owners who have quick serve restaurants take out restaurants who say I just want the lowest cost TV.
[06:42] SPEAKER_01: I can put up my menu board.
[06:44] SPEAKER_01: And you know, we go through the journey of trying to explain that if you think of a consumer TV, it's designed for you.
[06:50] SPEAKER_01: And you can use it in the house.
[06:52] SPEAKER_01: And in the house, it's not necessarily that bright.
[06:55] SPEAKER_01: So the brightness on your TV seems bright in the household, but it's a bit darker.
[06:59] SPEAKER_01: Also, the consumer TV is designed to be on five or six hours a day, not not any longer than that.
[07:05] SPEAKER_01: And they usually have some HDMI ports and possibly a USB port from time to time.
[07:10] SPEAKER_01: But when you think of a commercial setting and you think of a quick serve restaurant, they're bright environments and quite often you're trying to attract people to come into your store and why you're not doing it.
[07:20] SPEAKER_01: And you're not the guy next door.
[07:23] SPEAKER_01: And so it's bright.
[07:25] SPEAKER_01: They're bright signage.
[07:26] SPEAKER_01: They don't just sit on landscape.
[07:28] SPEAKER_01: They can be put on portrait.
[07:30] SPEAKER_01: They have different inputs, whether it's VGA as well as USB HDMI.
[07:36] SPEAKER_01: And they're designed to be always on.
[07:39] SPEAKER_01: You know, some of these commercial panels can be on 70 to 100,000 hours continuously.
[07:45] SPEAKER_01: And so if you buy the consumer product and put it in the wrong location, you may end up again spending more money in the long run because you may burn it out over a while.
[07:54] SPEAKER_01: The other things consider because commercial panels are a few hundred bucks more expensive than the consumer is a commercial panels generally come with two or three year warranties from the manufacturer versus the one year for consumer.
[08:07] SPEAKER_01: So it's always worth again just getting the right product.
[08:10] SPEAKER_01: So I'm sorry, go ahead.
[08:12] SPEAKER_01: That's going to say in the case of a laptop, you mentioned laptops and again, we sometimes get hung up on commercial meaning business and retail meaning consumer.
[08:22] SPEAKER_01: It comes down to how many hours you're going to use this each day.
[08:26] SPEAKER_01: If you're a business owner, but you come home and do some of your accounting and you know, pay new bills for a couple of hours a day.
[08:32] SPEAKER_01: Maybe that retail laptop is the right one.
[08:34] SPEAKER_01: If you're going to be in front of your laptops, I am, you know, for pretty much 40 hours a week.
[08:40] SPEAKER_01: You need something with high processing speeds with a longer battery life with probably biometric security because you know data threats are huge.
[08:51] SPEAKER_01: And then something which is designed for a bit more rugged use, they're generally commercial laptops.
[08:57] SPEAKER_01: It generally made with a little more metal, they can stand a few dinks here and there and a bit of vapor and a bit of dust.
[09:04] SPEAKER_01: So really understand how you're going to use it and then you can make a decision from that.
[09:09] SPEAKER_01: So are commercial grade devices always more expensive?
[09:13] SPEAKER_01: They can be on the whole they may be, but when you factor in your warranty periods and you'll use it.
[09:20] SPEAKER_01: And if you use the wrong product, are you going to have to replace it in a year or two?
[09:25] SPEAKER_01: I think you know, you just got to spend the right money for the right solution.
[09:29] SPEAKER_00: So Christian, you know, we've entered a new era of life.
[09:35] SPEAKER_00: So to speak these days, obviously, since the pandemic was thrust upon us here just over two years ago.
[09:43] SPEAKER_00: So what are the biggest challenges that small businesses face as they navigate a more remote only or hybrid work model?
[09:53] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, the challenges they face are the same as we've all gone through in the last couple of years.
[09:59] SPEAKER_01: It's crazy to think it's been over two years now.
[10:02] SPEAKER_01: And thinking back and this includes my own experience and our experience, the best boy without head office.
[10:08] SPEAKER_01: It was a massive. Everyone just kind of grabbed their laptop and left.
[10:13] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. And then after a month or two, you know, people started saying, look, I can't just work on the laptop.
[10:18] SPEAKER_01: I need my monitor and need the keyboard at mouse.
[10:21] SPEAKER_01: And so the next iteration happens.
[10:23] SPEAKER_01: And whether people go back into an office and what we saw from our own customers was that some people had their own products or they were given a stipend or they were told to expense of the product.
[10:33] SPEAKER_01: The key was to get people set up to work. And it was absolutely the right thing to do at the time.
[10:39] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[10:39] SPEAKER_01: And we had to, you know, keep ourselves working, keep the economy going.
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: But there was a slight shadow side to that.
[10:45] SPEAKER_01: And that's that in not all cases did we have the greatest control or a challenge that some company started to realize, well, I don't exactly know what assets are out there.
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: And which assets are company assets and which a person that's it because I kept on the stipend as a their product.
[11:01] SPEAKER_01: You know, is that a taxable benefit? And so there are these sort of challenges to work through.
[11:06] SPEAKER_01: So if I were to, you know, companies looking to work remotely, they'll have gone through no doubt that HR policies on how to work at home.
[11:16] SPEAKER_01: Now look at the technology policy. So be really clear on what technology is going to be in the household and who owns it is at a company asset is it is at a person that said be clear on that.
[11:28] SPEAKER_01: And then start to understand what do you need? What is the right product to work from home? Is it the same as the office? And if I look at my user groups.
[11:39] SPEAKER_01: I may have designed a marketing people who need higher processing and a different type of laptop and big monitors to the persons in accounts receivable who may need, you know, a more low, low grade laptop and a regular monitor.
[11:55] SPEAKER_01: So I understand exactly what people need. And then understand who, how are you going to deploy this product? How are you going to get this to your own work force?
[12:04] SPEAKER_01: So you're going to do it yourself where you're going to do it from. And how are you going to support that product one sits out in the in the workforce?
[12:12] SPEAKER_01: You're going to make sure that you know, upside, I would say the technology has never been as important in the workplaces it is now.
[12:20] SPEAKER_01: Nor has it been as much of a gray area between personal life and work life as it is now. So making sure that we have that uptime is really key.
[12:31] SPEAKER_00: So as more of these companies and businesses look at whether it's remote, whether it's a work at home or whether it's even sort of a mixture of both.
[12:44] SPEAKER_00: You know, what's the best advice you would give them right now if they're looking at that or wanting to expand that and how can best by business help?
[12:54] SPEAKER_01: You know, there are really two main things that can help the remote workforce and there are two areas I touched on are offering.
[13:02] SPEAKER_01: So the first is hub. As I said, everyone should have hub is a brilliant tool and it's really good for those ad hop orders or for smaller teams. If you've got less than 10 employees is really easy, just just a regular e-commerce type transaction for larger scale deployment.
[13:20] SPEAKER_01: So if you want choice, then the remote workforce program is key and I would encourage anyone watching this who has or is considering a remote workforce to go on to YouTube and in YouTube, we actually have a one minute animated video which explains in that 60 seconds far better than I've tried to this podcast exactly how it works.
[13:42] SPEAKER_01: So you just go to YouTube and look up remote, a best by remote workforce program and it's an awesome program.
[13:49] SPEAKER_00: Oh, cool. I'm going to check it out myself. So how can companies keep track of their equipment?
[13:55] SPEAKER_00: You know, there's equipment all over the place, right? And people are using it at home. They're going to use it at the local coffee shop, local restaurant bar.
[14:06] SPEAKER_00: How do companies keep track of the equipment in this environment?
[14:11] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, keeping track of your equipment is key and there are different ways of doing it. And of course you need to look at the value of that equipment.
[14:19] SPEAKER_01: So you may want to know which employee has a keyboard and a mouse set and a monitor.
[14:26] SPEAKER_01: And in most cases, you just want to know how old that keyboard and mouse and monitor is because you need to look at your redeployment schedule.
[14:33] SPEAKER_01: But when it comes to things like your laptop desktop and some of those more expensive, big curves monitors, you really want to asset tag that product.
[14:41] SPEAKER_01: And that's something we can do with a pre-deployment sort of plan is to asset tag married against the serial number and an employee.
[14:48] SPEAKER_01: And then we can always record that when it comes to service or replacement so that any employee knows any employee knows exactly where their assets are sometimes.
[14:58] SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's pretty cool. If a company wants to install software on its employees laptops before, best by ships it to them. How do they go about doing that?
[15:10] SPEAKER_01: Also, we got pre deployment and post deployment services. So pre deployment, we would look at sending all the products to one of our Geeks squad cities, they're in Ontario and in BC.
[15:21] SPEAKER_01: And the Geeks squad teams there can image the product put in anti virus software, all the software that you want before deploying it to the employee at home.
[15:31] SPEAKER_01: And once they have an employee, the employee has a product at home, then the post deployment and comes in where our remote support Geeks squad agents can help make sure that that laptop or desktop is set up correctly that the monitors are configured well that if there's a webcam needed that that's on there and then peripherals like your printer are connected.
[15:54] SPEAKER_01: And so it gets you set up for success and it keeps you set up for success because having Geeks squad in chat on the phone or the ability to take over that core device just keeps that uptime up and keeps productivity up.
[16:08] SPEAKER_00: So, Christian and I know you've talked about a lot of things here, but in a nutshell, you know, what are the main benefits for a Canadian company on president of Canada's podcast network.
[16:22] SPEAKER_00: And I come to you and ask what are the main benefits that I can that I can get from partnering with best by business, what would you tell me.
[16:33] SPEAKER_01: Well, best by business very much like best by our purposes to enrich our customers' lives through technology and that purpose goes across the whole company is and it's important for best by business as it is the core business.
[16:45] SPEAKER_01: I believe very much as does the team in face-to-face account management that's something which you know in an e-com driven business environment has kind of gone by the way.
[16:58] SPEAKER_01: We want people to shop online, but I desperately want our customers to be able to have face-to-face engagement with account managers.
[17:05] SPEAKER_01: And we have 42 of them from BC to Quebec and they're very skilled individuals, but also I look at best by business slightly differently than a lot of B2B sellers.
[17:18] SPEAKER_01: So, we're not a pure technology company selling laptops, desktops and software solutions.
[17:25] SPEAKER_01: We're not an office supplies company. We're not an AV distribution company.
[17:29] SPEAKER_01: I like to think what I always evangelize to my account managers is you know we sell to the business environment and that's the whole environment.
[17:39] SPEAKER_01: The example I use is a car dealership. When you walk out to a car dealership you may see a big three by two digital signage display really bright advertising the latest models and you'll see security cameras on the outside.
[17:53] SPEAKER_01: And when you walk into the dealership you may see a touchscreen pedestal where you can build your own dream car and see a person walking out with a 55 inch TV because you get a free TV when you buy a car.
[18:06] SPEAKER_01: All of those things are supplied by us. In addition to that you have all of the technology that the back office staff have, the reception has the monitors, the laptops, and then in the break rooms or the customer waiting lounge, the furniture, the appliances.
[18:21] SPEAKER_01: So, when you think when we think of the business environment most of the things in that environment we can supply and have access to and having that single trusted source is one of the key things.
[18:36] SPEAKER_01: I believe differentiates us and I think that brand standard and the brand recognition is really strong in the market and there's a great deal of trust in us and we take that really seriously.
[18:49] SPEAKER_00: So, what solutions do you see in demand from small businesses with remote employees maybe currently and maybe even looking into the future.
[19:02] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and currently we're going through that. You know, we've gone through the first deployment and now we're trying to figure out what our policies are.
[19:11] SPEAKER_01: How do we onboard new employees and of course when the pandemic hit and so many people went to remote working there was a lot of new technology in the marketplace while we're two and a bit years into this by the time we get to three years you're looking to redeploy and refresh with that product that's out there.
[19:30] SPEAKER_01: And I think the next wave is going to be how okay we did be an opposite panic by but we got people set up a success.
[19:39] SPEAKER_01: Now how do we make it into a replicable program and that's what we're prepared for through hard through the remote workforce program.
[19:48] SPEAKER_01: They are key and you know having strong brand looking squad behind it. That's what's going to set people up to six that's in the coming years.
[19:55] SPEAKER_00: All right, Christian in closing. Is there anything else you wanted to mention about best by business and that I didn't ask you about.
[20:06] SPEAKER_01: No, you know, those are the points I'm glad I got an opportunity to talk about all I would say is if you have more interest, just look up best by business call us talk to account manager.
[20:18] SPEAKER_01: You know, advice is free hub is free just getting touched engage with us.
[20:24] SPEAKER_00: All right, super thanks very much Christian for joining us today.
[20:28] SPEAKER_00: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
[20:30] SPEAKER_00: All right, that's Christian led beater who is vice president of business development and asset protection at best by Canada.
[20:38] SPEAKER_00: I'm Mario Tonigus with Canada's podcast network. Thanks for joining us today.
