The Economy as an External Factor

The economy has not only been a factor in my organizations of employment over the past year it has been and is my biggest hurdle to overcome. The current economic crisis is a factor for my current organization and is the main reason I am no longer with my previous organization.

I was a National Account Rep with a wholesale distribution company for nine years until May of last year. I sold product direct to retailers and to other distributors. We started to see signs of some major concerns 2 years ago and tried to adjust our business to better accommodate our customers and increase the value of our product. As we made these changes we ran into problems because we were a small company in our industry and the larger companies had not made decisions yet on how to adjust. This put us at a disadvantage because until the big players make the changes the retailers don't take notice and follow suit. In January of 2008 we received notice about one of our largest accounts cutting back on ordering and in turn we had to cut back. I was the unfortunate recipient of the some unexpected time off and have been out of full time work ever since.

With my current part-time work at my local YMCA we have also been affected by the economy. As a membership driven business we are sensitive to economic issues because people may see membership as an unnecessary luxury. In my direct position I oversee the youth sports program and our program is supported by community sponsors. With the economic difficulties we had to come up with ways to add value to the sponsorship so that it would be more beneficial for businesses to sponsor. It is not that they don't want to sponsor but some just can't. We also have to be sensitive to families who want to and need to participate in our programs but are financially unable to. We are developing a volunteer program to help them along.