To hear Sean Leahy tell the story of the pivotal moments of the Vantage Group's formative years, one can imagine how differently things would have turned out for the group's founders if they had gone with the flow in the national-account arena. Vantage Group's founding distributors could have followed the lead of some deceased dot-coms and built a new-age business model for strategic national accounts that customers weren't quite asking for. Perhaps they could have expanded their product offering and attempted to entice potential national-account customers with a full pallet of plumbing supplies, safety products, pipe, valves and fittings and other MRO products.

They didn't do it. The Vantage Group is all about a bunch of electrical distributors who wanted to provide a national-account solution for large industrial and commercial customers who wanted a single source for electrical supplies. Period.

Says Leahy, president of Vantage Group, “Many companies had several hundred plants or even 1,000 hotels. They were still all buying locally, and weren't taking advantage of their national scope. None of their computers were linked. They didn't know what they were buying on a national basis. They saw the opportunity to get smarter and negotiate better. Also, 100 plants meant 100 purchasing people, each one of them negotiating their own deal with a distributor. They had a great opportunity to consolidate a lot of things.”

Started 11 years ago by Crescent Electric Supply, East Dubuque, Ill.; Platt Electric Supply, Beaverton, Ore.; Branch Electric Supply, Canada's Westburne and All-Phase Electric Supply, Leahy says Vantage Group was founded to “leapfrog” its competition by providing a national account solution with the fewest number of distributors. Today, Crescent Electric Supply, Platt Electric Supply, Rexel (which bought Branch and Canada's Westburne and NEDCO), and McNaughton-McKay Electric Supply Co., Madison Heights, Mich., own Vantage Group. Together they operate 2,000 locations in a total of 27 countries — 800 locations in North America — have combined annual sales of $13 billion, and are enjoying double-digit growth rates in the national-account arena.

In addition to the locations the distributor-owners operate, Vantage Group also works with 50 independent electrical distributors to cover customers' facilities in those markets where Crescent, Platt, Rexel and MacNaughton-McKay don't have a location. “It's part of the flexibility we bring customers,” says Leahy. “Rather than try to service a customer location from 200 miles away, we will have a relationship with an independent in the area. It works out great for customers because they get coverage no matter where they are. It's certainly good for the distributor and it's good for us, too, because we aren't trying to serve somebody we can't serve. We have the process nailed down. We link them into our computer system and treat them like they are one of our own.”

“If a company has 100 plants and we can handle 97 of them, it's really good for us to have those three handled so we can provide a 100 percent solution for a customer,” says Ed Kozlow, business development manager. “We want them to provide the same kind of service to our customers. We treat them as well as we do our owners.”

Leahy is particularly proud of Vantage Group's global expansion (note the globe on the cover of this month's issue) and says Vantage is “really the only game in town that has an international key account solution.” “Eleven years ago, people were looking at the United States,” he says. “Eight years ago they started looking at North America, now they are looking for global suppliers. Not a day goes by that I am not speaking with our partners in Europe.”

The company recently signed a contract in China with a Chinese battery manufacturer, and Owens Corning is now a global customer of Vantage with a five-year contract. Owens Corning had tried other national account solutions, but signed on with Vantage after those contracts did not work out.

Saint-Gobain, an international giant in the glass industry, operates hundreds of plants around the world. Its annual contract with Vantage Group is in the millions. “It's all been based on the cost saving we provide them,” says Leahy. “We probably have six different invoicing versions.”

Says David Stockwell, MRO category manager for Saint-Gobain, “Saint-Gobain expanded our agreement with Vantage Group from 22 plants to 200 plants. Vantage Group has given us the flexibility and resources to consolidate our electrical spend to further leverage our volume and have added great value to our strategic initiative.”

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