Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/964617
January/February 2018 41 competitors. Moreover, data is provided in person, in response to specifi c questions. Krayden does not prove its value through case studies or marketing materials with embedded data. "One of the advantages of our business model is that we need to maintain relationships with a smaller number of suppliers than our competitors," explains Wagner. "We communicate by picking up the phone. We only need to call about 20 people across all of our fi ve or six top supplier partners to get something done. Our willingness to provide data to answer questions or prove our point means that our suppliers are more willing to respond to our requests." Is Innovation through Partnerships Right for Your Business? If it were possible to simply adopt another company's strategy, every company would be wildly successful. For Krayden, success is about working with its supplier partners to stay relevant in a changing market it cannot control. Success is a work in progress and requires a dedicated eff ort eff ort by leaders, data transparency, lots (and lots) of communication and attention to business culture. As FEDA's members look for insights and ideas that might move them forward with a new approach, each distributor should consider these fi ve questions to determine if a focus on new partnerships can yield successful innovations: 1. Are the products that drive your profi ts commodities sold on availability and price, or technical products that require specifi cations? 2. Can you identify and build a profi table business around a line card with fewer suppliers? Or, would new supplier partnerships be built on other variables? 3. Can you identify suppliers that would be receptive to a focused approach on technical selling and value-added services that drive incremental growth? Are you willing to back up your promises with data? 4. Can you maintain relationships with a wide range of customer roles in every account, tailoring your value proposition to technical, production, procurement and leadership positions? 5. If you build a new model based on reinvented partnerships, will it beat disruptive off erings, either by off ering product and brands that don't migrate to online marketplaces, or by off ering services and data transparency that a disruptor will not match? ■