Recently we caught up with Collin Ogilvie, a rising star in Boyd's corporate department, to talk about his work as a corporate buyer and what he enjoys most about working at Boyd Metals.
Read on to see what he believes sets Boyd Metals apart in the metals service industry. From Boyd's company culture and core values to its senior leadership and employee appreciation, learn what drives Boyd's continued success and standard of excellence.
What do your day-to-day responsibilities look like?
As a buyer, day to day activities are centered around facilitating the quoting, ordering, and delivery of customers' special orders along with maintaining desired stock levels on all products that I cover. That sums it up well.
To keep on track, I try to consciously maintain daily, weekly, and monthly checklists for tasks both current and upcoming. Through this process, I am constantly trying to forecast areas of opportunity for Boyd and our customers to capitalize on pricing or availability to be able to provide the best service possible with tomorrow in mind.
How important is company culture to success of your job?
Company culture plays a huge role in personal and companywide success at Boyd. As an employee, there is a sense of Boyd as a team rather than simply your employer. Boyd does a great job of empowering employees to seek continuous improvement. If you notice an area for potential growth or improved processes, management’s door is always open to listen and engage the idea with the common goal of developing Boyd Metal's future success.
What characteristics does senior leadership look for in employees in order to represent Boyd’s core values?
To best represent the core values, the top characteristic that comes to mind is Passion. If you are passionate about what you’re doing and enjoying it, the core values come naturally. Having the passion to meticulously service customers requires every core value to maintain long term achievement which is something Boyd has proven works.
What’s your favorite part about working at Boyd Metals?
The people and culture are both great. The work itself is easy to enjoy. Each day presents its own unique challenges that we must work collaboratively to meet the customer’s current needs.
It is a never-ending puzzle of trying to be one step ahead of whatever might be thrown your way tomorrow and being the utmost prepared to make the customer’s experience as seamless as possible (pun intended). You’re not faced with the monotony of repeating the exact same thing day in and day out which makes work enjoyable.
How does Boyd leadership show employee appreciation?
Boyd leadership and management show their appreciation not only through empowering their workers, but also by treating them as more than just employees. Each Boyd location and department does a great job showing this in the hours after 5pm. Each location does their own unique employee outings and events which may include dinner, a ballgame, or something like bowling. Doing this develops the friendships and camaraderie within the company while also saying thank you for all the hard work that gets put in.
What do you believe makes the Boyd Difference?
Again, commitment to the core values but maybe the emphasis on Relationships--- Top to bottom Sales, Purchasing, Warehouse etc-- treating people with dignity and establishing a level of respect and trust whether it be from customers, vendors/suppliers, to even the relationships with other employees. That's what makes the Boyd Difference.
Developing these relationships opens the doors to added transparency from customers and vendors. Doing so helps us as a company to put together plans to maintain the successes from our suppliers through us which translate to our customers.
What do you think gives Boyd Metals an advantage over competitors?
Boyd Metals offers a market advantage in that we are smaller private company and personal enough to establish relationships and plans that create exceptional service and success for our customers.
While maintaining this philosophy, we aren’t a slouch either. We have 5 locations serving the Midwest and South-Central regions of the country. Our size and emphasis on purchasing allows us to offer the small personal feel, while offering pricing competitive enough to compete with anyone.
If you are looking to work with a company that values both its employees and customers, we hope you will consider us at Boyd Metals. We pride ourselves on the strength of our team, our company culture, and our commitment to excellence. Contact us today and see how we can help!
