The Buzz That Was eBiz

Last week IDEA held its eBiz conference which, with the support of NAED this year, was essentially billed as “the industry’s technology conference.” And while IDEA had record attendance with 207 registering, the challenge is that, according to one attendee “60% were association staff and service providers” (according to a registration list we received, as of February 15, 50% of registrants fit this criteria).

The good news is that there were 32 distributors registered bringing 60 people and 22 manufacturers with 43 attendees.

And for many, according to those who shared feedback, the atmosphere with similar to the recent NAED SouthCentral and NEMRA conferences … happy to being back to meeting with people and networking.

While we didn’t get to attend due to client commitments, Electrical Wholesaling and MDM did and shared their thoughts. Some highlights from their reporting (comments in italics)

Electrical Wholesaling

• 217 attendees with 1/3^rd being first-timers (most likely due to the number of service providers in attendance.)
• Meeting was a “reboot” for IDEA with an opportunity to communicate, face-to-face, about the IDEA Connector, formerly the IDW (Industry Data Warehouse).
• The IDEA Connector now has 2.9 million SKUs
• 19 of the top 20 EW Top 150 distributors utilize the IDEA Connector as a component for either their ERP content and/or eCommerce content. (and many use multiple sources.)
• Key “new” initiatives include:
  • Development of in-house data mapping tools
  • Rebate management partnership with Enable
  • Global syndication of electrical product content (and this was announced for Rockwell, however, many US Rockwell distributors are AD distributors and IDEA and AD have a preferred relationship. While a big announcement for IDEA, Rockwell’s visibility in the US distribution environment, defined as the number of distributors they impact, is nominal.)
  • A strategy to aggregate weights and measures which could benefit distributors in their ERP systems for shipment and warehousing benefits as well as online benefits.
  • A “harmonized data initiative” (which, feedback we’ve received afterwards was 1) confusion of “why?” and 2) an inference that other organizations, such as ETIM and eClass, were involved, however, neither standards organization has been involved.)
  • Development of a “data auditing system” to track most frequently accessed products from the IDEA Connector and possibly development of a standardized web storefront package for distributors (presumably for small distributors.)

MDM

• “Post-pandemic” state of the industry was the dominant topic of conversation
• Wes Smith, President and CEO of Mayer Electric and NAED Chairman, said “good data is essential to powering business” and panelists at the general session commented “the demand for real-time updates has exploded.”
• There was a breakout session titled “B2B eCommerce Wheel of Growth” with Dave Bent, ES Tech Group, commenting “the 4 critical components to eCommerce success are Commerce, Content, Connectivity and Communication.”

And then there is unsolicited input.

As mentioned, I didn’t attend, however, some observations and comments that were shared included:

• IDEA was able to attract 27 sponsors.
  • “Many service providers essentially talking to each other as not enough distributors or manufacturers in attendance or seeking their services”
  • According to one eCommerce service provider “91 companies here. Mainly larger distributors and manufacturers. IDEA seems well organized but it’s not a good venue for us (or Optimizely, or ORO, etc…) as almost everyone here is doing eCommerce already. Sold us something they didn’t deliver on. They have been selected by Rockwell for global syndication – but Rockwell isn’t here!!”
• General session was informative, and I really like the panel discussion (interesting comment regarding the panel. It involved NEMA and NAED presidents as well as members of IDEA’s board of directors but, if the focus is “the channel”, where’s NEMRA?)
• Wes Smith reportedly commented that “ETIM should be the industry product classification standard and ‘we should all aim for it’” according to one source. Another source phrased it as “Wes Smith, during IDEA’s panel that touched on standards, made a bold statement: I fully believe that ETIM is the standard that this industry needs to be following, and nothing else.”
• IDEA’s concept for a Harmonized Data Model reportedly was received with much confusion as in “what is the need for something else”, “who is driving this”, “why make changes”. Some commented afterwards that this initiative appeared to be pushed by a few individuals and a consultant. (Given that IDEA is pushing for this HDM as a standard, the question then becomes, how does this become an electrical industry standard What is the benefit? Who is involved (and I can add that ETIM North America was not asked or is involved as, in full disclosure, I am on the BOD of ETIM NA. Further, ETIM is already a global standard supported in over 25 countries and ETIM North America already has over 35 members. Also, remember, Trimble / Trade Service provides content to distributors and contractors. Also, manufacturers need to serve engineers, the retail channel and non-IDEA users. It also makes no sense since IDEA is involved, and reportedly supporting, ETIM. Given what Electrical Wholesaling shared is on IDEA’s roadmap, getting involved in setting product standards sounds like something that should be re-thought … a flawed concept.)
• Many breakout sessions, so good variety, but attendance ranged from 7 to 50. Typically had 3 per time-slot. (which sounds like they offered too many sessions. According to the schedule which had been online, there were 12 breakout sessions. IDEA probably expected many more attendees.)
• Some distributors were intrigued about the Enable rebate management presentation and capabilities, especially to manage non-marking group deals, but they were confused by the SPARXiQ presentation / involvement. Reportedly there is some connectivity between Enable and SPARXiQ for an add-on service.
• “Breakfast & lunches were very well done and afforded time to discuss many topics that IDEA would not necessarily have a topic on but I heard dinner was not good as heard comments of “No ‘dinner’ just pickys” and that staff at venue was not helpful.”

An admirable effort by IDEA in holding its conference (and the fact that they had the entire staff at the conference speaks to the need for virtual organizations to bring their staff together on a periodic basis.) It’s good for the industry to reconnect and for ideas to be shared. According to all who shared input with me, the benefit was getting everyone together to discuss some state of tech. With COVID accelerating many companies’ investment in technology, understanding various tools that can improve efficiency is essential to the industry.

If you attended, what were your thoughts?