Wasteful business practices can cripple the business processes that support the manufacturer-rep relationship. In an effort to drive waste from this relationship, the NEMRA Manufacturers Group (NMG) has commissioned a study that it hopes will help all members of the National Electrical Manufacturers Representatives Association (NEMRA), Tarrytown, N.Y.
The initial findings of this study were detailed during the NEMRA Manufacturers’ Group (NMG) Forum at the 36th Annual NEMRA meeting last week in Louisville, Ky. Some of the findings from the NMG project, entitled Eliminating Wasteful Activities in the Rep & Manufacturer Sales & Marketing Channel, were presented to the approximately 1,600 attendees at this year’s conference.
According to Tom O’Connor, Farmington Consulting Group, Farmington, Conn., who is conducting the study, reps and their manufacturers are serious about eliminating wasteful activities in the channel. This effort will take shape in an NMG white paper. "It’s our hope that this white paper results in a change in performance and behavior in the industry and doesn’t just sit unused on bookshelves," he said.
Research for the study is already underway, and O’Connor shared some of the results from the telephone surveys conducted during the past two months. Research will also include focus groups and site visits at reps and manufacturers. Some of the study’s initial findings presented at the NEMRA Annual Conference were:
Manufacturers gave "excellent/very good" ratings to their reps on their ability to develop and maintain strong local relationships with their distributors.
Manufacturers also rate reps high for their ability to provide responsive and knowledgeable customer service personnel, perform order entry and complete quotes and returned goods authorizations (RGAs).
Reps’ outside sales personnel also got high marks for their knowledge and sales skills.
On the flip side, manufacturers were unhappy with rep performance in the following areas:
Pushing new products to end-users.
Developing and maintaining strong local relationships with end users.
Providing local marketing merchandising programs.
Rep respondents rated manufacturers high for the quality of their products; ability to deliver products within satisfactory service guidelines; responsive and knowledgeable customer service personnel; and responsive, competitive and consistent pricing.
Reps saw room for improvement in the frequency and quality of the training that manufacturers provide; handling of order entry, transactions and RGAs; and the performance of regional sales managers.
Two manufacturers’ comments were quite telling. Said one, "Reps can’t perform administrative tasks without calling us." Added another manufacturer, "When we send reps written communications, only one in ten will actually read it."
Reps seemed most concerned about excessive sales-activity. O’Connor said reps saw monthly sales reports as a "big waste" that "fall into an abyss."