Last week AD held its 2012 North American Meeting for its electrical division. 841 people were in attendance, including myself as Channel Marketing Group is a service provider to AD affiliates and manufacturers.
During the 2 1/2 days there was much interaction among manufacturers and distributors as well some new initiatives launched by AD designed to help affiliates and manufacturers increase sales. The theme of the event was “Invest in Relationships”. Between Bill Weisberg’s keynote address and the new strategies that AD is deploying, AD reinforced the message effectively.
There are 2 parts to this post. The first shares information about the meeting. AD mentioned numerous times that Bill’s presentation and the awards presentation are / will be posted on YouTube on the AD channel (click here to go to the channel). As of this writing they were not posted. The second part highlights industry input we heard from distributors and manufacturers.
AD Meeting
Congratulations to the following award winners:
- Best Annual Planning Process – City Electric
- Best Conversion to an AD Supplier – IAC and GE Energy
- 2012 Supplier of the Year for Marketing Excellence – T&B for their Vertical Marketing initiative
- Clean Energy Affiliate of the Year – VMI (Van Meter)
- Clean Energy Supplier of the Year – SolarWorld
- Clean Energy Champion of the Year – Randy Moberg, Werner Electric of Minnesota
- Canadian Affiliate of the Year – Independent Electric
- US Supplier of the Year for Performance – Juno Lighting
- US Affiliate of the Year for Performance – Schaedler Yesco
- US and Canadian Supplier of the Year for Leadership – Hammond Power Solutions
- US Affiliate of the Year for Leadership – Bell Electric
- AD MVP – Brooke Himmelberger (Fromm Electric)
- Giving Back Award – EB Horsman (who raised $500K for a children’s hospital charity!)
- AD Rewards, an aggregated spiff program where inside and outside salespeople can earn points, redeemable for merchandise rewards, from up to 30 manufacturers for sales of all products. Manufacturers may also have the ability to “extra spiff” for selected / new products. The program was viewed positively by affiliates and over 20 have already participated in a pilot program. According to AD, the program was in response to the AD Supplier Advisory Council’s request for a tool to drive AD sales and influence the key point of contact … inside and counter salespeople. The program is scheduled for a 2 year pilot, indicating the confidence that AD has in the program.
- AD’s Clean Energy initiative continues to build traction and they anticipate 30% growth in this segment. There are 38 renewable companies involved plus and additional 31 “traditional” suppliers. 160 affiliate champions are advocating renewable sales within their companies. Emphasis is being placed on affiliates becoming more energy independent, and efficient, themselves through a “Walk the Talk” program as well as selling to the 11,000 facilities that affiliates and suppliers represent. This is a very diversified program that can be effective even in states where there are no rebates. More can be seen at www.adcleanenergy.com.
- An upcoming initiative related to vertical marketing was announced. It’s designed to further focus affiliates on vertical markets that represent growth opportunities while also supporting manufacturer investments.
- It was mentioned at the Supplier meeting a manufacturer shared that AD recently reaffirmed it’s position on selectivity regarding its membership initiatives and “quality vs. quantity”. Manufacturers feel that this is a significant “differentiator” between the groups.
- Conversions were highlighted. 48 year to date, which is impressive considering the continuity in distributors and manufacturers within the group … it’s not the case of only new members converting.
- AD and IDEA have a unique data enrichment collaboration effort underway that is already responsible for helping get 250,000 SKUs fully enriched. The goal is 400,000 in the second year of the program. Cross referencing is also an element of the initiative. Affiliates and manufacturers were excited about this initiative – the promise of better quality data and data synchronization as well as the content to power e-commerce initiatives. According to a source, AD’s larger distributors and those more industrially oriented are actively focused on this. The concept was also presented to IMARK, which reportedly declined to support as “members were not interested.”
- The southeast is down significantly as there is little new project activity and there was much industrial activity in 2013. Next year looks “better” presuming projects that are being quoted are released.
- Lighting fixture business is down.
- Manufacturers were quoting 4-6% increases as their goals for 2013. Some a little higher but that is due to specific market focus or new product introductions. An AD affiliate / manufacturer survey conducted in September projects 5% increases in 2013, with industrial being the strongest market.
- The distributor acquisition market is robust. Many potential acquirers reported having received many companies offering to sell. Most appear to be asking for inflated numbers. Some mentioned that they heard that the Platt deal included real estate, hence increasing the selling price.
- Rexel reportedly has closed some more locations, especially in the south, and heard of people hiring Rexel and Gexpro personnel.
- Recylcing initiatives, unfortunately, haven’t caught on and are being done primarily as a part of a project / where required by an RFP.
- According to an Eclipse representative, they have hired additional support staff in response to distributor concerns. This has not been independently verified, but we hope distributors can attest to any improved service levels.
- Manufacturers lamented the overlap of meetings. Many were going from AD to a Graybar meeting (that started during the AD meeting) and then to the IMARK meeting. Many also mentioned that HD Supply recently announced a meeting requiring supplier attendance which conflicts with the first 2 days of the NAED Eastern. They wondered if there wasn’t a venue where all could check for major industry meetings (NAED?).
2 Comments
the data development program sounds like the industry may finally be on the right path and could help us all. wonder why imark declined? will the data be available to all or to just ad distributors?
Thanks for the comprehensive overview. Congrats to all our award winners and thank you to all the Distributor and Supplier attendees for making it such a great event! Videos soon to follow!
Paste the following URL into your browser to view the photo slideshow from the recent AD Electrical Division North American Meeting: http://www.flickr.com/photos/affiliateddistributors/sets/72157631778471907/show/
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