Welcomed Thoughts from a Fellow (Jeff Valles) - Why Can’t We Work Together?

In the early 90’s I was working with the president of a fabrication company in Peoria, Illinios. We were discussing Phylrich’s part needs and how we might have to alter a few of his staples to fit into our product assembly system. Then, to my amazement, this gentleman projected his spreadsheet on the wall and listed his cost breakout on each part, then totaling each one including his overhead. I sat there stunned - I had never witnessed such vendor-buyer honesty. 

 

I then joined the “what-it-costs” game by opening our books to him about our cost to market. After a bit of jousting, we agreed on the prices and continued to work together for many years.

 

Later, when I asked him why he opened his books to me, he replied that his largest customer was Caterpillar and that is the way they had worked together for a long time. They had always been fair with each other. Put simply, it worked for both companies because they trusted each other. Now let’s turn to our beloved industry, where it seems we cannot share data between like-businesses.

 

A few years back, a DPHA member showroom asked roughly 20 other showrooms to share their costs, operations and income numbers with no branding company information. The data would be sent to a relative of theirs not associated with our industry at all, and they would crunch the data and then send each of us a dashboard showing where we were relative to the other participants. GREAT INFORMATION! As I recall though, only three showrooms shared data - three! A wonderful opportunity to learn that was thrown away.

 

This was a missed opportunity, both then and especially now. Our large competitors, real and perceived, have access to large amounts of data, and the technology to use it in order to improve all facets of their businesses. Most importantly, they use their data to take away our market share. The only time we seem to talk numbers is at the bar (my sales were $675,456,334,000 and we ran a gross profit of 62%). 

 

Unfortunately, I do not know of a magic potion to help us communicate more effectively, but we could all benefit so much by working together. I do not think our niche businesses can continue to provide the best products and services by standing alone in our individual markets. Going it alone will continue to be a very tough road. Can’t we just all get along?

 

If not now, when? 

 

If anyone, vendor, showroom or representative is interested in tackling this, please email me at jwvals@gmail.com. 

 

And by the way, that wonderful company in Peoria, Illinios? They donated the land under their first factory to the Peoria minor league baseball team, and then recently sold the business for a nice chunk of change.