Innovation grows in all channels - Brief Article

Home Channel News, March 6, 2000 by Don Longo

One of the things that struck me most about last month's Innovators 2000 Conference, conducted by National Home Center News in Orlando, Fla., was the breadth of creativity shown across all channels of the industry -- retailers, distributors and manufacturers -- aimed at serving their customers better.

Indeed, almost all the speakers and case examples cited addressed ways of reinventing the total customer experience -- whether that's with a bricks-and-mortar store or a cyber-shop. Tom Spitale, a consultant with the Peppers & Rogers 1 to 1 Marketing Group, spoke about how this reinvention starts with understanding your customers -- understanding what's important to them, and then giving it to them in a way that creates tremendous barriers to a competitor trying to woo them away with lower prices.

Texas home builder Michael Holigan explained how a simple how-to home improvement infomercial led his company to developing a nationally syndicated TV show, to an interactive Web site and, eventually, to franchising his brand of upscale home building across the country.

Dom Cecere, president of North American Building Materials for Owens-Corning, noted the speed with which the industry is changing and the need to change the way you do business even faster. Wickes sales and marketing vp Kenneth Kuehn gave a great example of this change by showing a video of Wickes' "Frame a Home in a Day" program, which truly redefines the role of the traditional building materials dealer into one of super supplier, project manager and installer.

A panel of leading e-tailers in the home improvement industry spoke about their visions of the online future for Internet shopping, but it was two distributors -- Bill Fondren, president of Orgill, and Neil Hastie, chief information officer for TruServ -- who showed how understanding product distribution is the key challenge in the e-commerce arena. Both executives were in agreement with a position I've spoken about before: business-to-business e-commerce is going to transform our industry much more quickly and in more significant ways than business-to-consumer e-tailing.

The more than 100 industry execs who attended the conference were treated to a photo tour of some of the most-talked-about, new bricks-and-mortar store concepts in the world, from Villager's Hardware to Ace's Store 21 to Home Depot's Type 6 warehouse prototype and more. Mike Largent, president and CEO of Stambaugh's Hardware, spoke about how understanding customers' lifestyle changes helped his company reshape a traditional hardware store into a Gap-like specialty retailer.

Two speakers also showed that innovation is very alive outside the borders of North America. Guillermo Aguero, CEO of Sodimac, Latin America's largest DIY retailer, wowed the audience with a video tour of his current store prototype. John Herbert, managing director of Knauber, the German DIY company that is acknowledged as one of Europe's most innovative retail chains, gave a thought-provoking keynote speech about the importance of recognizing the "emotional touchstones" that enable a retail store to create loyalty in shoppers -- and maintain profitable margins.

I suggest that anyone going to this month's International Hardware Fair in Cologne, Germany, make some time to visit one of these truly unique DIY stores. There's a great Knauber in Bonn, just a short drive from the show.

Be sure to watch for NHCN's March 20 Innovators Issue, in which we profile the most innovative companies and people in the home improvement and building material industry. In addition to the profiles, the issue will also contain a more comprehensive report on the Innovators Conference.