Distributors have had to become more adaptable in the past few years, especially the smaller guys operating against some of the industry's leviathans. Yes, many of these smaller companies boast a focused product range adorned by the necessary technical back-up. Sometimes it takes a bit more.
Take the Reading, UK-based
Sequoia Technology. Now Sequoia has a longish 22-year history as a
technical distributor. It was an independent, then it was owned by
French group Tekelec, and now its an independent again as a result of a
management buy-out a few years back, headed by industry veteran Nick Lidington.
Lidington
and his team have become remarkably adept at meeting customer needs and
going way beyond what is generally seen as the distributor's domain.
The tale Lidington told me about a sensor network in a bacon factory is instructive.
A
company cooking bacon which then goes into pre-prepared sandwiches had
a problem. There was a cold spot in the cooking process which led to
raw bacon bits. The company was weeding out the uncooked rashers, but
wanted a cost effective method of circumventing this problem. Casting their net for a solution they approached Sequoia which as a number of sensor products in its line card. Their technical team joined with the bacon cookers to design a sensor system for the company to monitor heat in their ovens during the cooking process.
End
of distributor involvement? Not at all. Lidington then had the system
safely installed at the customer's facility. And in an even smarter
deal signed them up to a maintenance contract which will deliver
regular revenues.
I love this story simply because it throws a great
light on a distributors ingenuity in a highly competitive market to get
the order and keep the customer.
By the way Sequoia has kicked on from this business, designing its own range of data acquisition and remote monitoring systems(http://sequoia.co.uk )
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