Canadian distributor celebrates 50 years

Windsor Factory Supply has six Ontario locations and is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2005

By Joe Nowlan, Associate Editor -- Industrial Distribution, 10/1/2005

Things are golden these days at Windsor Factory Supply—in more ways than one. With 2004 sales at nearly $100 million, according to president Duncan Brown, the company has enjoyed consistent profits and growth for the past several years.

In addition, Windsor is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year with a series of celebrations and customer appreciations throughout its six Ontario locations.

'We're showing our customers how we appreciate them keeping us around for 50 years. We've done something right, I guess, to keep the same recipe going for that long,' Brown laughs.

The company was founded in June 1955, by Jerry Slavik and Joe Sobocan. It was literally 'a nuts and bolts' company back then, Brown explains. Both Slavik and Sobocan worked together at another nuts and bolts company in the area, but were unhappy and decided to venture out on their own.

Together, they founded Windsor and put themselves in a position to grow as auto assembly factories and machine shops began opening up in Southwestern Ontario in the mid-'50s.

'They started out pretty bare bones,' Brown says. 'But they grew the business and had some good contacts with some understanding bank managers. Slowly, they grew the customer base and added employees to handle that business and it went from there.'

The company grew to the point where in 1985, it started a profit sharing plan with its employees, where Windsor employees owned 49 percent of the company. The remainder of the company was bought out by the employees in 1995.

Today, the company headquarters is in Windsor, just across the U.S.-Canada border from Detroit, and about a three-hour drive from Toronto. Brown's office is at the London location. The other branches are in Samia, Leamington, Wallaceburg and Mississauga.

Brown himself has worked there for 30 years. Before that, he worked in his family's home building business—a facet of the industry to which he's still connected today. Housing construction has been a key part of Windsor's success, especially in recent years.

'The housing industry is still quite strong in southwestern Ontario,' he explains. 'A lot of industry is still coming into this area, which allows the housing market to grow.... And the interest rate has been pretty favorable here in Canada for a number of years.'

Of course, when houses go up in sufficient numbers, additional construction work usually follows. For example, the area near Windsor's London location, he says, 'is one of the cities vying for a new Shriners Burn Hospital. We're on the short list for that.'

The casino industry in Ontario—while originally a niche business for Windsor—has proven to be a source of added business in recent years. Brown estimates that there are some 20 casinos either built or being built in southwest Ontario.

'Most of our supplies to them are material handling items and some large carts,' Brown explains, the latter used to move the many dollars in coins that casino slot machines take in and, occasionally, pay out.

'Some of that is changing, too,' he says, referring to debit cards being used more in casino slot machines. 'A lot of the casinos are moving away from using coins.... Now they print out a little ticket that's bar coded. You bring that to the cashier to get your money. I've heard that this is starting to happen in some of them.'

No more of that magical jingle-jangle heard all too rarely by slot machine winners? No more 'cha-ching'?

'Yup,' Brown laughs. 'Funny, but I always thought part of the mystique of winning was hearing those coins rattle in the tray....'

Longtime suppliers have been pleased with the Windsor experience. One is Ross Cordell, senior distributor sales manager for Aearo Canada Ltd., a manufacturer of safety products located in Mississauga, Ontario.

Windsor is a fully authorized Aearo distributor in Canada, Cordell says. He raves about their work with Aearo and points to Windsor's employee-owned status as a factor.

'When you talk to them, every individual is an owner. So they take an 'owner's attitude.' They just seem to raise the bar in everything they do,' he says.

As an example. Cordell routinely makes joint sales calls with Windsor's outside sales reps. On one such call, the customer they were visiting asked for a special price quotation that required the sales rep to check in with the Windsor home office.

Cordell, from experience with other distributors' reps, was quietly leery as 'my frustration with some distributors, albeit not all, is that a week or two after such a quote request, the customer will still not have seen that quote yet.'

After the usual 'we'll get right back to you' farewell, Cordell and the Winsdor rep headed out to their car.

'Before we get into my vehicle, the Windsor rep is on the phone, talking to his inside sales guy,' Cordell recalls. 'He hangs up, turns to me and says, 'The quote's already been sent.' The customer had that formal price quote in-transit to him before we even left the parking lot.'

Brian Katz, director of field sales at Stanley Works in Dundas, Ontario, calls Windsor 'one of our stronger supporters' for virtually the entire Stanley Tool line.

'They give true definition to the overused phrase 'business partner,'' Katz says. 'They will proactively come and tell us about some end users they'll want us to target together... When they might have an issue, they'll call me to address it, but they will also come with suggestions on how to resolve that issue.'

Now about those anniversary plans—Brown says there was a big event held earlier this year on Niagara on the Lake, near Niagara Falls.

Windsor brought in 'all the employees and all the [Windsor] alumni for a weekend.... There were also shows for our vendors in Windsor with 45 suppliers involved. In addition, each branch operation is being challenged to put on a local event within their areas.'

This profile previously ran in Industrial Distribution's ISCON 2005 Convention Guide in May.

By Joe Nowlan, jnowlan@reedbusiness.com