Hi, I’m Paul Darley, and thanks for tuning into our December issue of Inside Darley. If you are anything like me, you are probably ready to put 2020 into the history books and move on to bigger and better things in 2021.
CEO’s expressed the same thing in the CEO confidence report. The CEO confidence level plummeted in November following the election, mostly on fears of President-elect Joe Biden’s increase in tax and regulation and the impact that will have on the businesses. Coupled with COVID lockdowns during the holidays and all the rest. We will continue to monitor that closely.
Certainly, the stock market is reacting favorably. November just closed out with the S&P 500 having a record month. So, the stock market has rebounded very quickly this month and it’s starting to like what it sees. Here in Illinois we just had a lot of vaccines arrive in Illinois 400 thousand of them. They are awaiting FDA release to be distributed to our first responders, elderly individuals, and those at high risk in the state.
If you are like us then you are probably spending a lot of time on your strategic planning. We just finished our 5-year plan, and we are launching our new 5-year plan that runs from 2021 through 2025. If you can imagine we have involved over 40 people at the Darley company in our strategic planning process. We are big believers that people support what they help create, and the more people we have the more viewpoints we can involve in the process. We even brought in an outside facilitator and we always start by looking at megatrends. In fact, the first two attachments are on Megatrends.
The first megatrend document is from PWC and it talks about 5 megatrends that will impact the global defense and security industries. We are showing you a snapshot of what those look like.
At Darley, we also use a very simple excel spreadsheet to track all our initiatives and tactics as we move forward on our 5-year plan. If you’d like to see a redacted copy of that, reach out to me at PaulDarley@Darley.com.
We are constantly scouring the industry to find out what we can learn from others. The IAFC has a great website where they have a lot of information available, but they just published an article called “Are Leaders Born or Raised?” We have attached a copy of that article. It talks about a leader’s ability to create followers who believe in you and the direction you are headed. Integrity and ability to motivate and inspire others. See the big picture and make decisions. Some with a natural proclivity. But it really discusses how most of these traits are learned.
We always look for the NFPA Fire Loss Report to come out for our strategic planning and we have attached a copy of that report. There were 1.3 million fires across America in 2019. Roughly 25% of those were structure fires, and 17% of those were vehicle fires. On that note, if you can stick around to watch the end of the video, we will have a two-minute video on our Bridgehill Fire Blanket. The blanket can be used on combustion engines and electrical engine cars. We have the fire blankets in our catalog, and we have attached some literature to go along with it.
We have a single use for $1,200 and a reusable version for $2,400. We ordered a container load of them and they have already been sold. We are getting great reception on those from parking lot companies, ferry companies, car manufacturers, Porsche.
On a final note, we at the Darley family extend to you our best wishes for the coming year and the holidays and really thank you for the ability to serve you this past year. We wish you all the best.
Thanks for tuning into this issue of Inside Darley, if there is anything we can be doing to support you, we hope you reach out to us.
