The Show & Design Group success story begins where many begin – in a spare bedroom with a few bits of this, a little of that, not much money, and the nagging feeling that something bigger and better was waiting to be built. That was then (2015). And as principal owner, Lew Aronoff recently shared with us, now looks very, very different.
“In seven years, we’ve grown out of that bedroom and two other locations into a company with more than 20 employees doing work for the likes of National Geographic, Encore, The Venetian, N’SYNC, 3G, and more.”
And what is that work?
“In our sweet spot, we’re a ‘design & execute’ company. That’s where we shine,” explained Aronoff. “We have CAD capabilities, a team of designers, and with 11 tractor-trailers, we now have our own trucking department, which we also use Flex to manage.”
We wanted to know more about this trucking thing because it was the first customer we’ve spoken to that manages trucks as an asset. Sure, there have been several that have their own trucks, but tracking trucks “like a light kit” was a first.
“We started with the trucking around September, 2021,” Lew said. “Trucking allows us to be competitive in faraway lands!” Lew further clarified that “faraway lands” meant the lower 48. He continued, “We’ve already had gear and trucks in every state. It’s both a rental and execution value-add that creates separation from competitors.”
It should come as no surprise that we like the idea of Flex being so flexible that it provides the operational structure to run a transportation business. And that kind of flexibility is the very thing that Lew loves most about Flex.
“I did a little research, but Flex really was the best solution. Life before Flex was a never ending challenge of spreadsheets and post-it notes. With more than 50,000 skus now, it’s impossible to fathom operating without Flex.” He added, “Flex has so many different ways to do things, once you figure out the best way the platform works for your needs, it creates efficiencies you didn’t even know you needed or wanted!”
So what does this all look like? We asked Lew to pick a date and tell us what was going on (or out). Randomly, he looked back at June 19th. “Oh wow. We had a bunch of local stuff for dance productions, and a backyard party, but we also had trucks out for .38 Special, Christie’s, and Encore. We also designed and produced four Infocomm booths, not to mention a bunch of subrentals going out” That’s a heck of a day.
Finally, what is the biggest surprise you found working with Flex. “Well, Flex helps us minimize loss because it’s easy to track items. When you can quickly identify missing assets, it’s much more likely that you’re going to get it back. Plus, Flex helps us confidently know what we should buy more of. If I want to know what my most used asset is I can run a report for that. My most profitable asset? That as well. If we didn’t have Flex, I don’t know what we’d be doing.”
Flex is proud to have worked with Show & Design Group and its team to “take events to the next level” since 2019.
