Electrical distributors, manufacturer representatives, and lighting agents face a continuous challenge with project quotations … the need for speed.
Contractors, and specifiers, want everything yesterday. And once they finally place an order, they want the submittal information “yesterday.”
In addition to speed, they also want the quote to be complete and include as much information as possible.
While custom products take time, for standard items, one of the biggest challenges is time … the time to gather all of the information necessary for a quote. This is further complicated by:
- The increased number of requotes.
- Personnel challenges … not enough people, especially as qualified / tenured staff retires.
- Staff knowledge … finding people who have enough experience to complete quotes quickly.
Essentially, the only way to get more through your personnel funnel is to cost-effectively increase the size of the funnel. How can you get your team to do more, within the same time constraints?
The only way is via technology.
Our newest advertiser, Parspec, has developed tools, which are now augmented with AI, to help distributors, manufacturer reps, and lighting agents deliver more quotes faster, with more accuracy, and with better quality information.
Parspec leverages AI to help leading electrical distributors bid more and win more
Who is Parspec?
Parspec is a technology company serving sales agents and distributors in the lighting and electrical industry. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in San Mateo, California, Parspec’s AI-powered platform substantially reduces the time required to quote and prepare submittal documentation, enabling customers to bid more jobs, increase hit rates and boost operational efficiency. The company is backed by leading AI and construction technology venture investors including Innovation Endeavors and Building Ventures.
Why Parspec?
Cost of sale for wholesale distributors in the construction industry is approximately 1.8x higher than comparable industries such as auto parts and electronics. The majority of this cost is labor associated with bidding and project management.
Electrical distributors, for example, invest 32 hours in project selection, quoting and submittal preparation per won project. Given the relatively high cost to prepare a bid, most distributors are forced to be selective about opportunities they pursue.
According to a survey of NAED members, the average response rate to qualified opportunities is 89% – meaning 11% of qualified opportunities do not receive a response. With typical project orders in the range of $100k and margins hovering around 10%, the cost of labor associated with these activities and the associated missed opportunities to bid have a significant impact on company profitability.
With recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies transforming business operations in a variety of industries, leading electrical distributors recognize that they need to develop and adopt digital solutions to ensure they remain on the competitive vanguard. Parspec uses cutting-edge NLP and computer vision models to create a current and comprehensive catalog of lighting and electrical products available in the U.S. market from various online data sources. Parspec’s catalog contains millions of products and their associated attributes which enables users to instantly identify products from preferred suppliers that meet project design specifications and other requirements. As a result, users can deliver a superior quote and associated submittal documentation in far less time than previously possible.
What Parspec Customers Say
Parspec has built strong partnerships with key industry players, including three of the top ten lighting agencies and four of the five largest electrical distributors in the United States, including Sonepar, Rexel, Graybar, CED and SESCO Lighting.
“With Parspec, we expect to reduce response times to customer quote and submittal requests by up to 50%,” said Rama Theekshidar, USESI’s Chief Digital Officer. “This will enable our existing workforce to quote and to win more projects, helping to drive profitable growth for USESI in 2024 and beyond.”
“With Parspec at our disposal we’re more efficient than competitors doing it the old way,” said Eli Basset, Manager at CED in San Francisco. “That means I can go out there and capture market share.” Benefits reported by Parspec customers include 30-50% reduction in time to quote, enabling teams to bid 6-15% more jobs. In addition, customers have increased win rates by shortening response times and quoting products their customers are more likely to accept.
“Parspec isn’t just another software solution,” said Netesh Gohil, Vice President of Operations at SESCO Lighting, Inc. “It’s critical to our business.” SESCO has been a Parspec customer since 2022.
How can I learn more?
For more information, contact Luli Maurino, Strategic Growth Manager, at luli@parspec.io.
Recommended Next Steps
Distributors, reps, and lighting agents looking to support their quotations teams, whether they be at the branch or centralized, should learn about Parspec’s tool, Click here to video a 5 minute video … or better yet, have your quotations team look at it and ask them “would this help you?” and “should we learn more?”- Recently Parspec held an online 45 minute platform demo. Click here to view the platform demo (it starts at the 6:00 mark, and it’s “raw” and unscripted) without the pressure of a salesperson walking you through it. This way you’ll be more informed and have questions ready for when you talk to them.
- If you could do me a favor and mention to Parspec, “I heard about Parspec on ElectricalTrends,” I would be most appreciative!
Parspec’s quotation platform is one of those rare technology tools that a company can invest in that can help increase throughput, improve the quality of output, be cost-effective, AND help increase sales and profits.
This is an example of how AI can work for distributors, reps, and agents.
Perhaps a second half resolution should be reaching out to Luli to learn more?
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