Making Services a Reality

Ensure that new services meet or exceed customer's and supplier's expectations.

When incorporating new services or expanding existing offerings, distributors must:

• Forge closer relationships with suppliers and customers.  Tighter collaboration upstream with suppliers can result in new services aligned with your existing product offering, while deeper collaboration with customers will reveal new and  more meaningful service opportunities.
• Align their services-related investments with market realities and trends as well as customer's value perceptions.  A deep understanding of the competitive landscape often requires a broad perspective on just who the competitors are.  Increasingly, consulting firms and technology providers represent additional sources of competition over and above wholesaler-distributor peers.  The ability to quantify and demonstrate the value services delivers is as important as delivering the service itself.
• Ensure that new services meet or exceed customer's and supplier's expectations.  This requires both carefully documenting initial expectations about the service and measuring ongoing performance against those expectations.

ACTION POINT:  Build strong supplier and customer relationships and understand your market realities.