Five panelists representing five key industries discussed the outlook for 2016 this morning, and each had different concerns and reasons for optimism. Gov. Scott Walker also gave his insight about the year ahead.
The panel was part of the Waukesha County Business Alliance’s annual event, Key Industries for Wisconsin in 2016 and Beyond. BizTimes Media was a sponsor of the event.
The panelists were: Gregory Marcus, president and CEO of The Marcus Corp.; Timothy Hanley, global leader, Consumer & Industrial Products, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd.; Jaclynn Walsh, president and chief operating officer at Irgens; Jim Zaiser, president, Hydro-Thermal Corp.; and Brad Zepecki, managing partner, SafeNet Consulting.
View a photo gallery of the event here.
While a strong U.S. dollar and some challenged international markets have been a drag on the industry, the U.S. is a good place to be and manufacturing is a good industry to be in because of the rapid advancement of technology, Hanley said.
“There’s an awful lot of potential opportunities for you to grow how you serve your markets,” he said.
In the hospitality world, Marcus Corp.’s downtown hotels are starting to see a dip, and have traditionally fared worse than the annual trends, Marcus said.
“Business is stable,” he said. “Nothing horrible, but we’re starting to slow down.”
He championed efforts to revitalize downtown as a positive development for the region.
“I look at our community holistically,” Marcus said. “It is like a body—you need the head and the heart to work.”
Meanwhile, area commercial real estate development has been robust, and there’s no slowdown in sight, Walsh said.
“We really are bullish on the Greater Milwaukee market,” she said. “We’re really seeing that because of the growth and expansion, it’s allowing the local investments that we’re seeing in our community.”
As for manufacturing, there’s been some evidence of contraction, mostly due to slow growth in China, mediocre spending in the U.S., the strong dollar and declining oil prices, Zaiser said.
“With a 35 percent increase in cost, we’ve seen our business internationally drop about 40 percent,” he said. However, it could be worse. “Manufacturing may be soft, but anything is better than 2008 when I started as president.”
In the IT industry, talent attraction and retention is key as young professionals with the right skills are wooed by other locales, Zepecki said.
SafeNet has worked to create a fun culture, and recently moved to the Pabst development downtown so employees would be working in an exciting area as the arena development takes shape, he said.
Business owners should be on the lookout for security and big data to continue to play a role in IT trends, Zepecki said.
In his keynote speech following the panel discussion, Walker expressed confidence in the state’s economic picture—but said there is still room for growth.
“Things are a lot better today than they were five years ago,” he said. “(Wisconsin) revenues went up even as taxes went down.”
The unemployment rate has dropped significantly in the past five years, while the labor force participation rate is higher than the national average, Walker said.
The talent shortage in industries like manufacturing is a concern, and one the state’s educational institutions are working to address, he said.
“WCTC is just outstanding and it’s something we’re trying to replicate (across the state),” Walker said. “It’s not the sole answer to workforce development, but it’s a big piece of it.”
He encouraged parents to begin talking to their kids about career options early, and employers to hire veterans and disabled employees.
His goal, Walker said, is to get as many residents in the workforce as possible through increased hiring and training as well as public assistance reform. The state recently implemented a requirement that childless adults be screened for drug use before qualifying for food stamps.
“We believe there are too many people on the sidelines in the past years who have been seeking public assistance,” he said. “There were some in Madison who cried out that we were making it harder to get public assistance. No we’re not; we’re making it easier to get a job.”
