Impact. It’s the heart of VIPAR Heavy Duty’s annual conference. It’s right there in the name. The IMPACT Conference.
When the VIPAR Heavy Duty Family of Companies brings its stockholders, members, suppliers and service partner attendees together each October, it does so with the clear goal of making an impact on everyone’s operations. VIPAR designs the conference to drive wins and business opportunities for all, because, as Chairman of the Board Bill Nolan of PBS Truck Parts said Tuesday during the conference’s newly launched all-attendee general session “your success means our success.”
And success was the theme throughout Tuesday’s session. VIPAR Heavy Duty Executive Vice President Jeff Paul said the decision to update the IMPACT Conference schedule was made to maximize attendee experiences, creating a distributor-centric opening day that would build momentum for the whole week.
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And momentum comes from growth opportunities, of which VIPAR Heavy Duty has many, President and CEO Chris Baer said Tuesday.
Baer started his leadership remarks with a summary of the VIPAR Heavy Duty and Power Heavy Duty networks, stating the two groups are both tactically growing and defending their markets in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, while VIPAR also is working to aggressively grow its distributor representation across Latin America. The group is investing in other areas too.
The group is investing in other areas too.
Baer touted multiple marketing initiatives VIPAR is working on to better enable distributors to leverage corporate or supplier resources in the marketplace, as well as a five-year plan to grow Global Parts Network, a new sales program for large, dedicated premium vendors and continued investments in data, technology and end user engagement.
Other VIPAR leaders followed, and shared how their departments are acting upon those same opportunities.
Vice President of Business Development Joe Meyer detailed the pillars his department uses to support stockholders and members, suppliers, GPN and uncover potential new stockholders or members.
Vice President of Business Development Joe Meyer detailed the pillars his department uses to support stockholders and members, suppliers, GPN and uncover potential new stockholders or members. Vice President of Program Management Larry Griffin detailed improvements his team has made to onboard new suppliers and measure supplier success — including a new onboarding webinar and a supplier scorecard that Griffin said, “turns engagement into measurable performance.”
In the marketing world, Paul shared how VIPAR continues expanding its Nucleus Knowledge Center training platform and adding data to PARTSPHERE PIM and DAM while also focusing on data quality to ensure the information available to stockholders and members is clean, consistent and actionable.
He then closed the presentation with a look at VIPAR’s new Fleet Forward Focus plan.
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Still in development, Paul said VIPAR wants to build a program that is dependable, repeatable and built with clear financial advantages for distributors and customers alike. He said VIPAR is working with its distributors and vendors to build the program, and has hired Bob Johnson as director of business development, fleets program development to facilitate the program. Paul said VIPAR is very focused on ensuring the plan, when launched, functions in a way that makes sense for all parties. Like any customer-centric program, Paul said success requires uncovering “what’s the sweet spot for our distributors and who can we best serve?”
In other words, making an impact. Bringing the right people and tools together to bring victories for every business in the room Tuesday.
As Griffin put it, “The message is actually very simple, distributors want to work with suppliers and suppliers want to work with distributors. Our job is to make those connections more meaningful for both sides.”
