Together We Are One

By Steve Carter



Those of us of a certain age can probably recall the days when, every couple of months, the manufacturers and suppliers in our industry would be knocking on dealers doors, bringing us up to speed with all their latest innovations, marketing and promotional activity. They would show us spend reports, broken down by category and I have to say in those days, as a young (ok, slightly younger) purchasing manager, I was really clued up on what each and every manufacturer and supplier was doing and also planning to do.

The dealer groups were, and still are, very good at carrying out the supplier negotiations, ensuring that dealers have everything required to trade directly and would also actively encourage regular supplier visits to dealers.

I also remember having weekly deliveries from all of them, directly into our warehouse and then a daily delivery from the wholesalers with the tail end products that had been ordered during the course of that day.

Then some bright spark came up with the idea that the two main wholesalers could carry out all of the forementioned activity to ‘help and assist’ the manufacturers and suppliers. If I was a manufacturer, I would have probably been rubbing my hands together with pound note signs flashing across my eyeballs thinking, the two main wholesalers are going to do all this for us: happy days. To encourage dealers to get on board with the idea, the minimum order values for any direct spend was raised to almost impossible levels by many suppliers.

It is true that, from a delivery and environmental perspective, it made perfect sense but agreeing that the wholesalers would carry out marketing, promotional activity and brand awareness on behalf of the manufacturers, forget it; that just didn’t happen.

I regularly meet up with dealers, manufacturers and suppliers and everyone that I speak with agrees that strengthening those direct relationships would be of great benefit. That set me off on a mission and when there is a mission to be carried out, there is no stopping me. In recent months I have spoken to many suppliers and encouraged them, not that they have needed it, to reach out to the dealers in our group, talk to them, find out what matters to them and how, as a supplier, you can help them. Our wholesale partner has got involved and very often we have 3 way Teams calls, dealer group, supplier and wholesaler to work together and come innovative ideas on how we can all help each other.

I am really pleased with the way in which the dealer and supplier relationships are strengthening again, and it all comes down to one word: Collaboration.



If you’d like to know more about how you can become part of the wider Advantia team then please do contact us today for a friendly chat.