Spreading the word
It has never been more important for manufacturers and distributors to deliver their value-added message to end users
By Chuck Stockinger -- Industrial Distribution, 5/1/1999
As manufacturers and distributors approach a new millennium, it has never been more important for them to collectively share a commitment to the concept of adding value for the end user. That's why we have selected the theme, "Adding Value Together" for the ASMMA/I.D.A. Spring Convention, to be held here in San Francisco, May 1-3.With increasing competition coming from a number of sources outside of our traditional supply channel, it is vital that we continue to add new meaning to our value-added message and bring new ideas and concepts to our end-user customers. If we don't, there are powerful forces out there that can and will have a major competitive impact on our businesses.
For instance, no one, not even the die-hard skeptics of the past, can quibble with the power of the Internet. Its growing ability to market every conceivable type of product -- from automobiles and books to jewelry and pharmaceuticals -- is impacting wholesale and retail businesses in North America and throughout the world. Today, more than 80 million people are using the impersonal Web for information and for buying opportunities.
ASMMA and I.D.A. continue to make impressive strides in formulating value-added strategies, developing tools for use by manufacturers and distributors, and in imparting this important manufacturer/ distributor message to the end-user community.
The ongoing effort of the Joint Partnership Enhancement Committee is but one important example of how we are creating programs and tools that enhance and promote the concepts of value-added to the end user. Also, the cooperative effort that ASMMA and I.D.A., in conjunction with other major industrial distributor organizations, undertook at the recent NPE/MROP event in Chicago (in conjunction with National Manufacturing Week) is another example of how a unified effort can have an influence on a wide audience of end-user customers.
As individual associations, we are also encouraging our members to identify and offer new and innovative value-added processes and services. We need to be more aggressive and do an even better job in this regard in order to add validity to the message we are presenting to our customers.
For our part, ASMMA will take on a leadership role in 1999, taking the value-added message to the end user. In one of the highlights of the Spring Convention, president Jim Falduto is unveiling ASMMA's exciting new Value-Added Partners program, a multi-faceted, grass roots campaign aimed at taking this message to every nook and cranny of the business arena in North America.
This is a program into which all of us -- manufacturers and distributors alike --can sink our teeth. If we all participate, there's no doubt in my mind that our message will be heard loud and clear. You'll hear all of the details at the Opening Session on Sunday.
Chuck Stockinger is executive director of the American Supply and Machinery Manufacturers' Assn.
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