NAED SouthCentral

The NAED SouthCentral was held last week in Las Vegas at Caesar’s Palace.  And while Caesar’s is a very nice hotel, especially if you like gambling, and it is perfect for large conventions (the AD North American Meeting was there about 18 months ago with over 1000 attendees), it isn’t the hotel for a smaller meeting like the NAED SouthCentral.

While NAED claimed over 600 people registered for the conference, it was difficult to tell at the meeting.  Essentially the hotel does not have a lobby that is conducive to networking and hallway meetings (a hallmark of NAED meetings).  The lobby’s biggest claim to fame is slot machines and poker / blackjack tables.  The meeting room was the furthest location in the hotel and must have taken close to 10 minutes to walk to (feel sorry for those distributors who had to traverse from the meeting area to suite rooms in the towers.)  Perhaps the hotel, or meeting room / reception locations were chosen as someone felt that “aging white guys” (a high percentage of attendees) needed some extra walking to trim down for the spring / summer?

Anyways, there wasn’t much energy since there were not areas for the industry to congregate. The seminars, from what we heard, were sparsely attended with one distributor telling us that the three sessions he sat in had 14, 8 and 6 attendees.  Some of the session speakers were reportedly very good (especially the multi-generational speaker).  The 10 apps speaker’s apps were “generic” and “disappointing” as people told us they were already using many of the apps.  The AmazonSupply session was underwhelming and not insightful, as many expected it to be.  The keynote speaker provided some light entertainment and was engaging.

The one-on-one booths were manned by only 55 distributor / operating companies.  And some people we never saw as they resided in suites throughout their stay. There were also a couple of distributors who were new / typically don’t attend who decided to attend to increase their visibility as they seek to grow their businesses.

But … business was conducted.  Some things we heard:

• Industrial distributors were reporting 3-8% increases so far and feel that they will hold for the remainder of the year
• Contractor-oriented distributors have more variance based upon locale and if they actively pursue energy efficiency initiatives.  Those who were down, and some significant, also identified that their quotation activity in November and December was down.  They are starting to see increased quotation activity and hope for a better spring (and remember, last year was a warm winter so comparables can be tough.)
• Those in the residential segment, not surprisingly, are doing well.  Some manufacturers reported up 20-30%, but this is off of low numbers.
• It sounded like national chains were underperforming. Heard that Gexpro has closed 3 locations so far this year, bringing the number to 48 since 2006. Rexel continues to struggle.
• A number of manufacturers talked about vertical marketing strategies as well as the desire to ascertain their share by sales territory.  What does this mean?  They are becoming more performance-oriented as the market is changing. There is a since that the market isn’t growing, so going after share is key.
• Heard plenty about acquisitions … possibly 3 companies in the upper Midwest on the market, heard a number of manufacturer rumors that involved name companies (mostly lighting and devices).
• Multiple sources advised that Southwire is launching a new product line … of tools.  The line will be in retail (Lowes) and in the channel. Given Southwire’s relationship with many distributors, would not be surprised to see them “leverage” distributors for an initial order. And given Southwire’s volume in the marketing groups, would expect that their tool line will automatically be in the groups (who will say no to a $100M+ line).  Question will become, will another line become a casualty? Reportedly Greenlee was the most “displaced” at Lowes.
• Much talk about the continued ramifications of the ABB/T&B and Eaton/Cooper deals and what this may eventually mean at Graybar (everyone wants some Schneider business – and as an aside, a number of distributors commented on the continued value of being Premier) and it is felt that Graybar may, at some time, selectively support the other lines where they see opportunity.
• Heard positive on EcoInsight, the energy-efficiency software endorsed by NAED
• There was much talk about “enriched / attributed” data and the need to be able to offer e-commerce solutions. The only entity that seems to have made headway on enriched data is AD through its partnership with IDEA (and a few AD members are actively involved in IDEA’s iCIMM2 e-commerce platform and are pleased with direction.)
• A few distributors commented that they are “confused” by Philips‘ direction … seem to want to go more direct.
• As expected, Rexel is expanding some of Platt’s best practices, especially in the areas of training and HR.