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Employee-owned distributors tout the benefits of creating an 'ownership culture.'
Leaders in industrial, electrical, HVAC/plumbing/PVF, building materials, and power transmission/bearing sectors are named in new report.
"It's about redefining success in the new marketplace," says Julia Klein, president and CEO of specialty building products distributor C.H. Briggs, Reading, PA. "An adviser recently said to me, 'If you're a C student when the rest of the class is failing, you're top of the class.' And I think that's a great way to look at it today."
Here's a look at what distributors MDM spoke to for this report are seeing in their major end-markets as of the first half of 2010. …
However, 18 months later, many distributors – particularly those in the building materials market – are continuing to struggle to get the credit necessary to conduct business. And that is making investment for growth more challenging …
MDM spoke with leaders from the fast-growing US LBM Holdings to learn more about the new holding company’s business model and its growth by acquisition of building materials and lumber distributors.
The new player in the building materials world hasn’t wasted any time making its name known. US LBM Holdings was created in October 2009 when private equity firm BlackEagle Partners stepped in to purchase three markets that Stock Building Supply had slated for closure. Those three markets had 13 locations.
L.T. Gibson, president and CEO of US LBM Holdings, had worked with Stock Building Supply for around 20 years, most recently as the vice president of the north and central divisions, when the closures were announced. “I started talking with private equity firms to see if there was someone who wanted to take advantage of the opportunity that was being created,” he said.
This is part of an occasional series of MDM articles on doing business electronically.
Over the past five years, more distributors and manufacturers have moved more of their business online, from offering product catalogs online to selling a broad range of items through electronic storefronts. And more customers are doing their research online before ever calling a distributor's sales department.
According to a recent survey conducted by Robert W. Baird …
Two years ago prices for finished steel and the products needed to manufacture it reached record highs. Price contracts couldn't keep up with spot price increases and were often abandoned by suppliers.
After just a few months, prices plummeted to lows that made "breaking even" questionable …
Today, Grainger is widely recognized as a leader among distributors in B2B e-commerce. But that wasn't always the case.
The launch of Grainger's first electronic catalog in 1995 marked a shift for the now $6.2 billion distributor of maintenance, repair and operations supplies. After all, the payback of such a move was still unknown, and that uncertainty could have prevented the heretofore "conservative" company from delving into that arena.
"The fact that [Grainger commissioned a team] to do this was unheard of at the time,"
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