Orchestrating Success

Every motion you make in your business sets the tone for the ultimate performance of the supply chain. Whether you are a manufacturer/service provider shepherding the genesis of the supply chain or a reseller/distributor working bi-directionally within the supply chain, success hinges on advanced collaboration in order to deliver on customer expectations. 

Great customer experience is intentional. Even in the throes of hyper-change and disruption, the successful leaders I collaborated with on this piece see unique opportunity in the market. They have architected, developed, launched and refined new solutions that bring harmony to the complex marketing supply chain. The transformation necessary to intentionally create a great customer experience can be conveyed through the traits of successful businesses.

Traits of Successful Distributors and Resellers

• Adaptive, Flexible Operating Reality

Resellers and distributors must continuously learn to adapt and respond to the rapidly changing environments and behaviors of buyers. Greg Muzzillo, founder of Proforma, characterizes the pace of change with sobering truth.

“The ‘new’ becomes a commodity faster and faster in business today," he said. "Most people, especially the end-user customer, take for granted what was special five years ago.”

Augmented by an unrelenting pandemic, the delta between the growth-minded and the laggards will continue to widen.

“Flexibility is the new operating reality," Muzzillo said. "Tomorrow’s opportunities are cloaked as the challenges of today.”

“The customer experience is improving in all facets of life with the proliferation of integrated technology tools and data," said Matt Bruno, executive vice president at PSDA. "It’s harder to decipher competitive advantage today as the ante has been raised to include price, quality and speed. The new focus is on needs, not products. It’s about creating brand success for end-user customers. The future advantage will go to the distributors who shift from a transactional mentality to a partnership mentality and choose providers who are streamlining marketing supply chain complexities.”

Indeed, taking into account the full-spectrum of adjacent markets, products and providers available to distributors leaves one wondering who will succeed at coordinating and aggregating the disparate pieces into a refined solution offering.

Entrepreneurial thinking is worthy of emulation in the midst of disruption. Shaheen Javadizadeh, CEO of 4over, noted that it is the “hungry entrepreneurs who are taking chances, looking forward, pivoting and winning. The most successful ones care passionately about their customers and their market. They establish trust with their customers by continuing to deliver new breadth and quality of product.” 

The reality of integrated technologies, seamless workflows, touchless operations and real-time push communications are all within reach. The advent of these platform advances will enable distributors and resellers to elevate out of the detail and become an orchestrator rather than a one-man-band. 

• Orchestrator of Outcomes

The information age in which we live has been aptly referred to as the “attention economy."  Buyers' habits have been sharply changing for many years and have certainly intensified as a result of the pandemic. Engagements with buyers are golden minutes where gaining a deep understanding of their complete needs are paramount to your product knowledge. 

“Look at the market as brand-campaign centric," said Nikki Stella, CEO at AIM Smarter. "Come to the customers as an agency offering full campaign solutions rather than as product specialists. Instead of pigeon-holing yourself in one niche, be the brand expert for the customer and all of their needs. Customers would prefer to work with one trusted advisor. Distributors who collaborate, integrate and adopt provider technologies will find lasting success.”

The strategic, full-service provider trend for resellers and distributors has been a winning formula for years and has become even more imperative in this pandemic era.

“Customers want to communicate differently with suppliers today,” Muzzillo said. “As a result of the pandemic, customers will remain distributed, working from home. Thus, accurate and timely information is essential. Companies that are not communicating through an integrated technology platform will increasingly fall behind.”

By strategically elevating your approach and becoming an orchestrator of resources to deliver on customer projects, you simplify the customer’s life. Consistently delivering positive outcomes for the customer will create the opportunity to become a trusted advisor.

• Pioneer of New Value Chains

As the relationship owners, the resellers and distributors carry the responsibility of not only adapting their mindset and elevating their market approach but also pioneering new platform efficiencies designed to simplify the complexities of the marketing supply chain. 

“Too many distributors are trying so hard to generate growth, that they are forgetting the tools and processes that are necessary to help them sustain growth," Bruno said. "The same is true on the supply side where too many providers are one-dimensional in their solutions offering. It is a multi-dimensional process to add new efficiencies and automated touchpoints to the supply chain and deliver lasting value to the end user clients.”

Case-in-point, many of the contributing leaders discussed significant opportunities and investments in technology solutions that are cutting-edge in their speed, information disbursement and market relevance: 

• Stella and the AIM Smarter team are seeing significant adoption of their suite of technologies and marketing services. Specifically, they are seeing a surge in demand for pop-up e-commerce storefronts that are short-lived, event-driven opportunities.  
• Muzzillo and his Proforma team took a couple of years to thoughtfully build, from the ground up, a streamlined platform that enables the Proforma owners to scale their businesses with efficient order, information and business metrics visibility.
• Rick Roddis, Navitor business unit president, sees a significant down-market opportunity where fully 71% of small distributors do not have an e-commerce presence.
• Shaheen Javadizadeh foreshadowed a revamping of marketing and e-commerce technologies at 4over that will create a new digital experience where market-specific product bundles can be edited and ordered online.

Creating an exceptional customer experience and sustaining that performance in an age of disruption and hyper-change takes diligence and the adoption of new technologies that will allow you to scale. The market is rife with opportunity for the resellers and distributors who can execute. 

“Customers don’t have time to see multiple suppliers," Muzzillo said. "Their companies are starting to understand the real cost of creating RFI’s, RFP’s, evaluating the responses and coordinating the logistics of all the disparate pieces. The cost of the product is oftentimes less than the fully burdened cost of procuring the products. Customers want one source with infinite resources.”

Traits of Successful Manufacturers and Service Providers

• Affecting the Success of Others

“We cannot rely solely on our tried and true product offerings," Roddis said. "Many of these products are entering their eighth decade of use in a world where product lifespans are measured in months. We are thoughtfully taking a step back to ask the questions, ‘What do end-customers really need?’ and ‘How do we equip resellers to fulfill those needs?’ We are focused on creating down-market solutions for our resellers that facilitate the success of their customers' programs.”

Extending strategic focus “down-market” for the ultimate success of the end-customer is a winning strategy. Ensuring your distributors have their unique needs met is also of paramount importance.

“By listening to distributors and resellers and responding to their needs," Stella said, "which are a reflection of the end-user customer needs, your success multiplies.” 

Listening to needs led Stella and the AIM team to the realization that the distributors were in need of full-service financial and capital support. So they launched a service to aid their distributors and free-up resources. 

At 4over, Javadizadeh enthusiastically discussed his team's “pragmatic marketing” approach, which identifies the “why” around the need and use of products and services. 

“We’re simplifying the marketing buying process by creating online product and service bundles that can be edited on the fly. These types of solutions will expand the resellers' product portfolios and market reach while making them appear bigger than they are.”

Bruno said the success formula in the trade service and manufacturing space is a simple pivot.

"Focus on making someone else successful.”

In doing so, your customer growth and success will become a force multiplier in your own business. 

• Nurturing Lasting Partnerships

Providers of trade services and manufacturing all have “high-potentials” in their workforce that are empathetic problem-solvers, good listeners and work with a bias for action. Equip these individuals with technology tools, and elevate their role with a breadth of influence that allows them to be decisive and orchestrate positive outcomes. Placing the right person in the right role at the right time is crucial to establishing a positive customer experience at the genesis of the supply chain process. 

“If you think of the trade provider and reseller relationship, it is truly symbiotic," Roddis said. "We, as the provider, invest and develop relevant products and solutions for the end-customer. The reseller, as the relationship owner, needs our best operational and intellectual assets to deliver for the end-customer. If these parts do not work in concert to deliver for the end-customer, we all fail. The key to a partnership is first clearly understanding the need of the end-customer. Then our team can partner with the reseller and suggest the right technology solution, leverage our national manufacturing footprint and access our team of knowledgeable product and marketing managers to provide the resources needed to sell the program.”

Javadizadeh believes that relationships deepen with an established trust borne out of disrupting the traditional market benefits. 

“In the past, customers could only choose two out of the three benefits of quality, speed and price," he said. "Today we have five: reliability, consistency, high quality, speed and price. Resellers want all of them and we deliver them all. We are geared to do this because of scale. Our team and our technology enable the reseller and the end-customer to succeed.” 

“Our distributors know we care,” Stella said. “We are focused professionals doing business with a heart. We have created a universe where once you step in you never have to step out. Whether it is providing financial and back-office services to you as a distributor or listening and collaborating with you on your marketing and customer needs, we can help you take your business to the next level.”

• Engineering New Value Chains

As one key trait of successful resellers and distributors is to pioneer new value chain opportunities, the calling of the service and manufacturing providers is to design, develop and execute on solution platforms that deliver on the promise of extended reach and customer value.

The customer expectation of ordering online and having a great experience will only further develop and expand," said Nate Mulliken, executive leader at Taylor Corporation. "Don’t compare yourself only to other printing websites. You have to look at the best e-commerce players and measure how your ordering platform compares. For example, we are seeing new entrants into our market that are 'high-design' oriented. While some of that is consumer focused, the user-experience expectation will begin to spill into the commercial markets.” 

A holistic market view is critical in developing market solutions with real value. Pragmatically, size and access to capital play an important role. 

“The future will bring greater consolidation," Javadizadeh said. "Raw material and logistics costs continue to increase, which impacts smaller providers who don’t have buying power. Additionally, access to capital is required to invent technologies that drive efficiencies throughout the system that speed job routing, improve safety and enable new product innovations. The companies who can execute at scale will shape the future.”

The notion of “inventing” is a refreshing outlook. It strikes a chord of inspiration that may capture precisely the mindset needed for future success. The strategic market leaders will invent solutions that add value and harmony to the complexities of the print and promo marketing supply chain. 

These same leaders will also unite with their extended “sales team," the resellers and distributors, in a closer-knit fashion than we have seen previously.

"What makes this time unique is that the issues facing the industry affect both the resellers and the print and service providers," Mulliken said. That is why collaboration and partnership is the key to mutual sustainability and growth.” 

We work in a complex and connected marketplace where human touch is still the critical component to success. Technology brings the promise of simplifying the complex marketing supply chain, but only to those organizations that understand how to integrate it so that it empowers people. It is the people, from all concentrations of the supply chain, that will ensure an exceptional customer experience and the future success for their companies.