Delivering Value: Beyond Price & Availability

For John Grove, president of GRS Communications, a solution provider based in Harrisburg, Pa., with $10 million in annual sales, ease of doing business with his favorite distributor, Voda One, includes individualized attention and flexibility.

When one GRS customer was slow to pay on a large project, Voda One agreed to extend terms because they knew GRS' business. "I said, 'Here's the account and what I need from a cash flow position.' They said, 'We'll work with you.' That's the type of thing that's golden in an organization. They create programs for the channel, but they tweak them for individual businesses," Grove said. "They made me feel that I'm not the same as every other reseller out there."

Grove contrasts that experience to one with another distributor with which he had a $5,000 invoice unpaid after 34 days. He ordered a small part for another project, but the supplier never shipped it because of the unpaid invoice—and never told him until he inquired. "That's a company that doesn't know my business," Grove said. "I've never done business with them again."

Robert Rhodes, chairman and CEO of solution provider Systems Evolution, Houston, turns to Ingram Micro first for one reason: his local sales rep, Oscar Grider. "I can truly say he is one of my friends. Every other month he calls to say, 'Hey, some of our partners are able to sell XYZ product. Let me set up a quick meet at a coffee shop.' He's always looking to introduce me to what's hot and why it's hot. That to me is a partner. He helps drive my business as opposed to sitting back and taking orders," Rhodes said.

As important as relationships are, there is no one reason why solution providers source from particular suppliers. The study, which polled 1,096 solution providers, found that solution providers on average contact 3.38 suppliers before making a purchase. And while the average solution provider estimates it sources nearly half of its products from a primary distribution partner, it also frequently shops from different types of suppliers for different reasons.

More than 31 percent of the respondents cited "breadth of product line" as the "single, main reason" they purchased from one of the broadline distributors: D&H Distributing, Ingram Micro, Synnex or Tech Data. In contrast, solution providers most frequently—26.5 percent of time—cited "they have products no one else has" as the single, main reason for doing business with specialty distributors such as Arrow Electronics, Avnet and ScanSource.