Testimonials
"Through its mature processes and metrics driven approach, Wipro has optimised our supply chain enabling us to provide superior service to our customers. This has led to returns in terms of retention of existing customers and attracting new ones."
Phil Stubbington
Service Delivery Head - Global Freight Management
Exel
|
Home  Wholesale Distribution Building Materials
Building Materials
One of the key business imperatives for a Building material distributor is to achieve double digit growth every year. However a building material distributor has to achieve this growth competing not only with fellow distributors but also with Home Improvement and hardware retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s.
New home construction continues to be the key business driver for a building material distributor along with the rise of light commercial construction. As a result of this building material distributors are affected by several trends which effect the construction market like Home builder consolidation, lumber pricing, interest rates and consumer confidence. In addition to these Building material distributors also have to focus on the following issues:
Diverse needs of customer segments
A building material distributor deals with customer segments with significantly different needs and service expectations. For example pricing, level of personalized services, rebates, installation support requirements of a production builder are significantly different from a custom builder.
Increasing labor shortage and the trend towards pre fabrication
The trend towards pre fabrication is driven by shortage of labor. This requires building material distributors to make significant investments in component plants, Millwork plants and installation services to help builders alleviate labor pressure and expedite the construction process.
Offer construction services to support big builders
The market share of the top 10 production builders is expected to reach 30 % by the end of 2006 and 50 % by the end of 2010. Building material distributors should develop new account management skills to effectively deal with the corporate purchasing departments of big builders. A building material distributor’s portfolio of construction services like framing and installation services can act as a key differentiator as they help the builders to reduce cycle time of the construction projects.
Unprecedented SKU proliferation and inventory management challenges
Building material distributors serving the professional contractor are witnessing an unprecedented proliferation in the number of SKUs (particularly among branded product lines) stored. New product introductions and product discontinuations have also increased making forecasting of customer demand more difficult and making inventory management a real challenge for building material distributors |
|
  
 Subscribe to 'Peer Ping' our monthly newsletter
 Request for Information
Ask Our Expert
For answers to your specific problem area
Whitepapers
The Key to succesful Trade Promotion Mangement (TPM) Implementation
More Whitepapers
Case studies
80% reduction in lost sales, enhanced process efficiency and improved response time
More Case Studies
News
Wipro acquires leading European Retail Solutions Provider, ENABLER
More News
|
