Last week Rexel shared its Q3 performance, providing a peak into how the electrical distribution market may have performed last quarter.
Rexel North America Performance
From their press release:
- North America was up 2.8% but driven by Canada.
- Overall, sales were up 7.7% on a reported basis (with US currency appreciation) but 2.8% on a constant and same-day basis
- US was up 1.8% for Q3, up 6.1% YTD
- The industrial slowdown impact was due to trade war with China, business selectivity (not pursuing low margin business?), and more challenging base.
- Residential up mid-single digits due to investments in branches / sales reps
- Canada was up 6.3% for the quarter, up 5.4% YTD
- Canada was up due to commercial projects and cable
- Copper, globally, had a -.3% impact on sales … so overall, the price of copper didn’t do much during the quarter
- Justified lower growth than Q2 due to lower industrial demand “especially in the US …” (which is surprising given they usually talk about growth from resi, commercial construction or new locations and the small to mid-sized contractor. Now the reason is industrial? It’s that large of Rexel’s business?)
- Rexel used an exchange rate of 1 euro = $1.12 USD. In Q3, US was 1.0457 billion euros, or $1.1712 billion USD
Additional insights from their investor presentation:
- North America grew faster than other regions as Asia was up 2.7% and Europe was -0.7%, highlighting the global slowdown with Germany and the UK both down double digits due to industrial slowdown in both countries and branch closures.
- In the PPT presentation, Rexel stated that US industrial was down low single digits due to low OEM activity, which was offset by its MRO business (so OEM was down a reasonable number and MRO may have had a slight increase or there was a business mix shift.)
- Rexel percent of sales by geographic region and business tendency
- Florida 11% of sales trending up
- Southeast 10% of sales trending up
- Northeast 12% of sales trending down
- Gulf Coast 14% of sales trending down
- Midwest 9% of sales trending down
- Mountain Plains 8% of sales trending up
- Southern CA 10% of sales trending up
- NorCal / Northwest 26% of sales trending up
Interestingly the “ups” are historically better performing regions for Rexel.
Rexel Digitally
On October 18th Rexel had a “Digital Event” and shared some information on its digital performance and strategy. It should be noted that these are their goals and vision and it is suspected that 1) it will be a continuum and 2) implementation will occur in different regions at different paces.
- Goal is to become a “data-driven service company”
exemplified by
- Personalized, seamless customer experience
- New services and positions in the value chain
- Data-rich supplier relationship
- Machine-augmented operations and employees
- Rexel sees new types of players entering the market … companies that will be “fixed price merchants”, “asset-light specialists” and pure online players.
- Rexel’s North America web sales are up 22% vs LY
(but lags Europe where digital represents 25% of sales). Expect to be 18% of overall company sales in
2019, up from 13% in 2016.
- 10% of North America sales are digital with the US being <10% and Canada between 10-30%.
- Globally, 22% of sales are to the residential market, 46% to the commercial market and 32% are to the industrial segment
- 60% of the business is “proximity” (web / branches), 25% is project-driven and another 15% is “specialty” business.
- For suppliers planning to offer “analytics as a
service” and “demand forecasting / steering” (will be interesting to see what
level of insights that they provide)
- Elements currently planned include:
- Product data quality (online content)
- Market segment … share of wallet by market segment
- % sales online vs offline by product and market
- Online customer journey analytics (perhaps what is being viewed by digital asset)
- Elements currently planned include:
- Some functionality that is planned:
- Track & trace for deliveries
- Lead times for non-stocked items (interesting challenge as requires integration with factories. While could be nirvana for customers, could be a nightmare for manufacturers given the number of systems will need to integrate with (as many distributors will want) but, more importantly, could result in manufacturers being held accountable for non-stock / project performance. Scorecards could be developed and customers may decide which line / products to purchase based upon manufacturer performance (similar to airlines having to share their on-time flight performance!)
- Offline and online account openings
- Product returns
- Development of a “churn alert” process to integrate with sales … efforts to be proactive based upon purchasing indicators of customers not ordering.
- Converting email to EDI to reduce manual data entry
Rexel emphasized that digital is much more than sales. Achieving digital transformation is a mind shift. This mind shift is needed to cultural transform, to revise processes, to be easier to do business, to be more transparent to customers and suppliers and to position the company for the future.
While Q3 performance weakened, North America outperformed the rest of Rexel and the US market was essentially flat. With 5 regions representing 65% of sales reporting some growth, the growth rate, in aggregate, wasn’t significant enough to offset the regions that represent 35% of sales that were down … which means they were down pretty significant … and the down regions are regions that are historically down.
Rexel’s digital vision is impressive, however, the North American market, and specifically the US, is lagging. Is this a case of the market or of Rexel? Perhaps the dynamics of the business are different in the European and Canadian markets?
- If you are a distributor, how are you finding competing against Rexel?
- If you are a manufacturer (and yes, you can respond anonymously or email me your feedback and I’ll post anonymously for you), how is Rexel performing for you and/or how “easy” are they for you to do business with?
4 Comments
Here in New England Rexel has been our source for personnel, although they don’t have much left. We believe we are continue to take business from them according to our customers. Must be we out service them because our margins haven’t suffered.
This is an interesting approach to what is already front of mind at any distributer able to invest in the future. Being at one of those businesses I hear about Rexel from my customers and vendors a fair amount. I feel at ease competing with them because customer and vendor feedback is that they have a good pitch, but cannot deliver long term. I am in a market in the south where experience trumps a fancy pitch. Customers just need their material and it’s up to smartest and fastest sales person to get it there at the best price. Looking at the results above and if you know anything about other markets (they are not all the same) it is clear that Rexel appears to continue to have their business at front of mind and that excludes the customer and their simple needs. Like the comment above, Rexel can keep sending their good personnel to the rest of us in Georgia who put the customer first!
They must be really down in industrial if 65% of their business is up. Here in Texas business is booming so them being down makes me feel great that we’re taking business from them.
What they plan to do digitally is what most companies should be working on anyway. Its going in the right direction. But not innovating to stay ahead.
Wondering what a Machine-augmented employee will look like…Sarah Conner.
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