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What’s new in the supplyFORCE pipeline? Learn more about the latest business opportunities from the supplyFORCE Business Development team!
In this video, Dave McGowan and Joe Bankard share the latest trends in proposals and inbound activity, ongoing customer supply chain concerns, a status update on the current pipeline, and exciting new opportunities.
MEMBER EXPERIENCE
Melanie Williams serves as supplyFORCE Member Experience Manager. A new role for supplyFORCE, the Member Experience Manager, bridges the gap between the member and customer.
Purpose:
To help meet members’ needs to ensure customer loyalty and satisfaction.
Goals:
To ensure each member is fully trained on the supplyFORCE NAV portal, which was created to help support members with transacting between themselves and supplyFORCE.
The new structure at supplyFORCE went into effect January 1, 2022. Since then, Melanie Williams has helped train many members on the portal and will continue this work until all members are fully trained.
Additionally, we have helped members with internal processes to reduce invoicing errors and minimize Electronic Distribution Interface (EDI) errors while processing invoices to supplyFORCE.
- Nicole Bienvenue, Marketing Coordinator
- Mike Deerwester, Director of ISD
- Julie Demilt, Senior Account Executive
- Jeremy Desiderio, Data Quality/BI Analyst
- Karen Desmond, Senior EDI Specialist
- Stacey Fischer, Client Management Specialist – Kimberly-Clark
- Danny Lewellen, Client Services Specialist
- Luminita Moza, Senior Client AR Specialist
- Joanne McGonagle, Pricing & Quotations Associate
- Donna Talercio, Client Services Specialist
Electrical
With input from the steering committee, our lead generation efforts continue for Core Business, New Markets, and Expansions:
- Retention and growth with existing clients utilizing DRIVE and IMPACT
- New market planning (Cooperatives-State & Local Government) – out for bid in Q4 2022 for NASPO ValuePoint and Sourcewell
- Government Sales and Small Business opportunities for Prime Contractors
- National and Regional contractors for general, specialty, and electrical where we are evaluating Top 5 opportunistic clients
- Product focus – Milwaukee Tools,, PPE Safety, Omni Cable & Wire, Distribution Equipment, and core electrical supplies
Pipe, Valves and Fittings
Mike Vita currently leads the PVF division as we continue to search for a Director of PVF. We encourage you to recommend any viable candidates to Dave Duco dduco@supplyforce.com or Mike Vita mvita@supplyforce.com .
We are working on three key initiatives:
- Identify membership gaps and opportunities to convert existing business to new supplyFORCE members
- Expand existing manufacturer relationships and drive IMPACT program membership
- Collaborate with members to drive new business in Pulp & Paper, Food & Beverage, and new markets (Pharma and Chemical)
Bearings & Power Transmission
Edgar Cyr leads the BPT Division and has facilitated two IMPACT committee meetings YTD, which includes a team of ten members.
We are focused on three strategic areas to drive growth:
- Evaluate sites for cross-sell opportunities and secondary alignment of services with existing Electrical contracts, where Nationals may not have service capabilities
- Collaborate with existing clients to integrate BPT members for projects, capital improvements, and services
- Target Food & Beverage, Aggregates, and new markets (Pharma) with lead generation campaigns
Industrial / Safety
Mike Deerwester joined supplyFORCE earlier this year as Director of Industrial & Safety. Mike has spent the last 22 years in distribution, including 18 in Industrial MRO and Safety distribution. He is familiar with supplyFORCE and AD, having worked 15 years with a former member. Mike recently led his initial Steering Committee Meeting and will connect with all members over the coming months.
We will drive growth through: Manufacturer IMPACT program participation, Safety solutions, Hand and Power Tool programs, a Weld Center Solution, and using 3M as a flagship for the division.
For new business opportunities, we will focus on: Contractors, Primes and Small Business initiatives, Aerospace, Tier 2 Automotive, Metals/Casting, and Cooperatives/GPO. We will also review existing contracts for cross-sell opportunities. Please contact Mike at any time to discuss the division strategy or to share targets you may want supplyFORCE to pursue.
Canada
Edgar Cyr leads the Canadian Division with support from Business Development and the Channel team. He recently attended the Electrofed meeting, where he met with supplyFORCE members Westburne, Electrozad, EB Horsman, and Daltco.
The Canadian Steering Committee meeting was recently held in Toronto, hosted by Gerrie Electric. The meeting focused on compliance with existing contracts and discussion on amended customer contract terms for Canada locations. Amy Marotta and Edgar Cyr represented supplyFORCE at this meeting, with Dave McGowan, Joe Bankard, and Jen Kohlmeyer virtually joining to provide business development and pricing updates.
DRIVE program
The supplyFORCE DRIVE program is the foundation of the Client Management Group, who manage our customer agreements. The DRIVE program consists of five pillars, focused on communication, implementation and compliance, cross selling verticals, growth, and retention of agreements
- The Compliance program continues to evolve via member-submitted online forms. Members may submit an online form here. The form is then reviewed and assigned to a supplyFORCE Account Executive, who engages the member representative and client. The site is reviewed for six months to monitor status and success. Status is reported monthly on all submitted forms until resolution.
- The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant delays in our Implementation and Strategic Site Visit programs. We recognize that many accounts require direct human interaction, so we have resumed travel to accounts such as Hearthside Foods, Refresco, Flowers Foods, Bridgestone Firestone, Sonoco, Treehouse, and Amcor. We will continue to include members responsible for supporting the sites we visit, as it is important to all parties to demonstrate collaboration between supplyFORCE, members, and the client.
- To improve the efficiency of our rebate process and expedite outgoing payments to our clients, we are working to automate the supplyFORCE Rebate program. Expected completion of this project is early Q3.
- To enhance the member experience and ease of input when submitting cost savings, we are developing a TCO pilot program with a few select members, that involves an online form and a cellular phone app. Providing an online solution should help create a prompt approach for Cost Savings entry at the time of the occurrence, rather than delaying until contract year end. The online solution will be available to all members in early Q3.
Transactional Improvements
Continued operational enhancements in multiple areas addressing both NAV and EDI have led to improvements in key system areas increasing back-office bandwidth and decreasing inbound EDI errors and manual touch. Our Transactional Excellence Program (TEP) has continued shown value for both Members and supplyFORCE. By working directly with members, we can identify areas of improvement within the EDI transaction flow to reduce manual touch points and improve automation. A proven value result is helping members post invoices faster lowering DSO while reducing the cost of transaction by removing manual touches. This function is critical for successful transactions with members.
Auto routes, where the PO transacts from the client to the member without any supplyFORCE touch have improved over 27% from Q1 2021. Year to date we are averaging 57% and expect to reach our goal of 60% by Q3.
EDI acknowledgements, we saw increase in quantity of transactions and an error reduction of over 7.85% vs prior year Q1 2022. Year to date, we are averaging 96.59% successful posting and are confident that we will reach our goal of <2% error rate by end of Q2.
EDI Invoicing, we saw a 5% reduction in errors vs Q1 2021. Year to date we are averaging 92.04% successful posting and are confident that we will reach our target of <3% error rate by end of Q3. In Q1 supplyFORCE generated 1.34% of the overall errors. Root cause is predominantly pricing updates and quantity or unit of measure to the volume of errors. Six members make up over 90% of received EDI invoice errors. We continue to work with these members to resolve these errors proactively.
