McGill Hose & Coupling
March/April 2010
For most distributors, 2009 could be dubbed the year of the cutback. To trim costs when business slowed, they cut back on inventory, investments and employees.
McGill Hose & Coupling, a family-owned distributor of flexible hose, fittings and fluid handling components based in East Longmeadow, Mass., took a contrarian approach. Despite sales being down nearly 25% last year, McGill increased its inventory, invested in equipment and computer software upgrades and hired a new director of operations, an inside salesperson and a second welder in its fabrication department. Company management believes the investments will pay dividends in future growth, but also helped get them through the recent recession. (read article)
Blazer Electric Supply
January/February 2010
You hear so much these days about mega-distributors buying family-owned electric supply houses that it's really refreshing to hear about someone getting into this industry because they believe it's a good time to start up an independent electrical distributorship. And when those people doing it have already built one of the 250 largest electrical distributors in the United States, their words carry a lot of weight.
During the 1980s-1990s, Steve and Mike Blazer built Colorado's Blazer Electric Supply into a four-location $48 million company that ranked amongst the fastest-growing distributors in the United States before they sold their company to Westburne in 1999. (read article)
Stellar Industrial Supply
January/February 2010
In the old days, distributors maximized profits by increasing sales. In the current economic climate, margin gains are more difficult to achieve. Stellar Industrial Supply of Tacoma, Wash., discovered that it is possible to make incremental margin improvement even when sales are flat or down. The company was an early adopter of a relatively new strategic pricing partnership between its distribution software provider, Activant Solutions, and Strategic Pricing Associates Inc. (SPA), a Cleveland, Ohio-based pricing analytics company. (read article)
Haggard & Stocking
November/December 2009
The day-to-day world of industrial distribution is far from glamorous. Sometimes, the most important work begins in the dark recesses of a tool crib on a manufacturing plant floor, where a distributor pokes through inventory in search of clues to wasteful spending. Haggard & Stocking Associates of Indianapolis calls that activity a "crib crawl." The goal is to establish a baseline of data before making improvement suggestions. (read article)
Industrial Supply Company
March 2009
Although her grandfather started Salt Lake City-based Industrial Supply Co. in 1916, Jessica Polychronis never saw herself working there.
"Growing up, I definitely didn't think of working in the family business," the 34-year-old Polychronis says today. "It didn't seem very attractive for a female. There was nothing glamorous about industrial distribution."
Not glamorous, perhaps, but her distribution roots there give a deeper meaning to the expression "family business." Her parents met while they were working at Industrial Supply, she explains. Her father, Phil Thompson, eventually became company president and today is its chairman. (read article)