PTDA celebrates 40th anniversary in Hawaii

By Staff -- Industrial Distribution, 9/1/2000

Waikoloa, Hawaii-The power that the end user wields in today's market will be the focus of the Power Transmission Distributors Assn.'s 40th Annual Convention, October 25-28, at the Hilton Waikoloa Village in Waikoloa, Hawaii.

Despite the lush resort location, educational programs and roundtable discussions will immerse PTDA members in some of the most serious business issues of the day, including understanding and meeting customer demands, e-business realities, and tactics for independent distributors.

"Those are the three critical areas," says Penny Omnès, outgoing PTDA president and vice president, marketing and human resources, for The BC Bearing Group in British Columbia, Canada. "We're really focusing on customer demands this year, because the whole industry is changing."

Author and consultant Ira Blumenthal will present the keynote address "Power of the End User," which will focus on the economic realities driving the trend towards more powerful end users and the potential impact on all parts of the supply chain. Blumenthal will also discuss how channel partners can and should work together to satisfy the end user, as well as the critical success factors for profitably meeting this challenge.

The convention will address customer initiatives such as supplier reduction programs, cost-cutting initiatives, and the use of alternative channels-like the Internet.

"To do what we did even 10 years ago and just to do that more efficiently will not be enough," Omnès says. "We're going through a dramatic shift. You can only achieve a certain level of efficiency through technology and then you have to change the way you do business. ... The advantage of PTDA is that it draws upon manufacturer perspectives, distributor perspectives and occasionally end user perspectives to help amass the information necessary to make better business decisions."

Responding to members' needs for information that will help them address market dynamics has been a focus of PTDA for all of its 40 years, combined with bettering the relationship between the distributor and the manufacturer. In fact, one of the association's leading convention events, the Manufacturer-Distributor Idea Exchange program, was introduced 35 years ago.

PTDA has a long history of providing its members with business and training resources, but conventions like the upcoming one have been the association's main contribution to the power transmission/motion control industry.

"Our members tell us that the most important benefit of being a [PTDA] member is the networking and business they accomplish at our annual convention and through other events," says Mary Sue Lyon, PTDA's executive vice president. "We provide the environment and location for an enormous amount of business to be conducted and a mechanism for the industry to find smarter ways of operating."