Focusing on relationships

By Staff -- Industrial Distribution, 2/1/2001

While businesses flock to e-commerce for answers to today's marketplace, R.L. Miller, a fluid power distributor based in Bethel Park ,Pa., concentrates on its core competency-the human factor.

"We focus on human interactions," says

Richard Simoni, vice president and sales manager, "to maintain our relationships and the confidence of our customers."

Many e-marketplaces offer services and opportunities, but president Mark T. Lewis says he has seen no compelling reason to join one.

"We align ourselves with only the best firms," says Lewis. "We are as strong as our weakest link. Our reputation would become tarnished if we represent a company that doesn't share our standards of customer service."

Simoni says the company's focus is local. He doesn't see e-commerce opening a global marketplace for distribution firms.

"That isn't how this business works," says Simoni. "Companies aren't buying over the Internet. Our customers value the relationship and services of their distributors."

R.L. Miller doesn't have online catalogs and purchasing, but it does maintain a Web site and adopted Tribute software to manage inventory, order entry and accounting.

Simoni says that many of his customers require assistance in engineering the right fluid power solution for their needs. This is a very value-added process that is part of the service the distributor provides.

"We often don't have a formal sales relationship with our customers," says Lewis. "One client said they view our salesman as a part of their team."

Serving the tri-state region of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, R.L. Miller is not in an area of large industrial growth. In the heart of the former steel industry, the company has seen many of its clients move or close their doors. Despite that, R.L. Miller was able to expand with a branch in Erie, Pa., in 1995 and now employs more than 20 people.

"In an area where maintaining status quo may be seen as a benchmark of success," says Lewis, "we have been able to maintain our rate of growth."

One of the ways they've been able to do this is by keeping pace with the change of local industries. The heavy industries have left, but the region has attracted some new growth in the semiconductor and medical technology industries. This has meant shifting from primarily hydraulics to include a wide range of pneumatic solutions.

Lewis says R.L. Miller has tried to support local business and attract more businesses to the region. One way has been to improve internal efficiency.

"It's simpler to increase gross margin by reducing costs and enhancing existing relationships than increasing sales," says Lewis.

The firm works closely with the business community and even partners with its competition.

"If we can help our competition fulfill their customers' needs [then] we all prosper...," says Lewis. "We can't see a down side to partnering."

R.L. Miller also strengthens the business community through education, says Lewis. The cost of providing ongoing training is far less than the cost of training new employees.

"We value everyone," says Simoni. "It's all part of keeping relationships."