Specialisation at Rawlplug – a new era of sales. Interview with Jarosław Bienias, Marketing and Trade & DIY Sales Director

Hello, Jarek. We’re just about to finish preparing a new issue of the newsletter intended for our customers. I asked you for an interview because I think our readers will definitely be interested in the sales restructuring process we are currently implementing at Rawlplug. What do you think, am I right?

It’s exactly as you said. Although sales reorganisation seems to be a mostly internal matter, I’m sure that all the changes currently taking place at RAWLPLUG will be appreciated above all by our customers. The whole point of the redesign and redefinition of our distribution model and form of service (as that’s what we’re talking about) is to meet the needs of the market, often signalled by the recipients of our products and services.

Sounds good, but now let’s get down to the details – what is the main change about?

Broadly speaking, it’s about specialisation. We need to specialise with our customers in mind, because we are here for them, not the other way around. A good supplier doesn’t go to the customer to sell solutions just because they currently have them. A good supplier brings those solutions which the customer needs at the given time. After all, a satisfied customer is the best business partner. And once they become our partners, business simply takes care of itself, so to speak.

What does this process look like in our case?

In terms of distribution, the construction materials market can be divided into three channels, to put it very shortly. The first channel is the traditional one, i.e. wholesalers and distribution centres, the second one includes DIY shops, i.e. mainly organised chains such as Castorama, Bricomarché, Obi, Mrówka and many other operators specialising in serving private individuals, plus, increasingly often, small contractor businesses. The third channel is Direct, i.e. direct sales to wholesalers and wholesale chains focusing on the professional customer and construction investments.

This is common knowledge, but where is our innovation in all of this?

Knowledge about the main sales channels has been around for almost three decades now. Few suppliers, however, are doing anything more specific with this information today. Why is that? The reason is quite mundane, in fact, and it’s money. Specialisation costs money. This is not just an empty slogan, but a strategy that in practice translates into a great deal of work, training, and expenses. It disrupts the comfort zone and brings about a need for change, which (let’s be honest) isn’t always pleasant or comfortable. It also entails certain risks, both for us and for the ultimate recipients of the changes. Our customers must not remain passive in the process, although their green light and trust are generally sufficient for us. Rawlplug will deliver the rest.

What will the ultimate outcome look like? My guess is that our assumptions involve changing the customer service model and the distribution system. What does this mean for our customers and, equally importantly, for our employees?

Our existing distribution and customer service model used to be determined for many years by the geography and boundaries of our Sales Branches across Poland. For example, our Lower Silesian branch would serve all customers roughly in the area of Lower Silesia, regardless of the respective customer’s type, specialisation or industry. What this meant in practice was that an employee working at that branch would simultaneously serve shops, wholesalers, construction investments, and DIY chains, and in their spare time they would drive to some factory to sell a fastener the plant happened to need. Once you factor in the 20,000 line items from the offering and the services dedicated to them, you’ll see it was quite a challenge. It doesn’t take in-depth analyses to realise that a salesperson working with such a broad customer and product spectrum evolving every year would become less and less effective, and definitely not 100% effective in any of the individual customer profiles covered.

You know what they say – a jack of all trades is a master of none. Or even worse, you may end up being good for nothing.

Yes, it’s true. That situation didn’t bode well for us, and certainly not for the customer. At such moments, change is necessary. Since the start of this year, our salespeople specialising in serving a wholesaler catering to construction investments have been working as a separate sales division, providing service to everyone in the respective field of specialisation. Starting in July this year, the existing DIY sales department will follow suit. This is a department that has existed for many years, and over this whole period it has had a virtually unchanged customer portfolio, but we should bear in mind that for all this time, many sales outlets have been established specialising in catering to the private individual, and today they fit 100% into the DIY model. Consequently, from July onwards, we will give customers such as Mrówka and others with a similar profile a service that matches their current needs and is more sensitive to their needs, which the DIY specialists simply know and understand perfectly well. Sales outlets and construction wholesalers will continue to be served by those who know this customer type and understand their regional needs best, i.e. by our regional branches.

Apart from remodelling the service areas and assigning the salespeople, are we planning to include any other processes within the specialisation journey?

What I've tried to convey in a couple of sentences would actually take a whole book to describe. I’ll write it, however, only once the whole process has been completed. In a nutshell, the salespeople area isn’t everything. This is merely the tip of the iceberg, and there are many more topics related to assigning the best and the most supportive kind of service to the customers. I’ll just name very quickly and in random order several areas from which the new divisions and our customers will derive more benefits than earlier. Since Q1, the promotion department has been retooling itself to design dedicated and profiled activities in the relevant channel, supporting our sales to the customer and the latter’s sales to the end user. The training department is also facing a huge challenge. First of all, we had to redirect in-house training of our sales force to make it focus exclusively on specialisation with our customers in mind. Today, we no longer train everyone with regard to everything, but carefully select the topics to match the specific areas. The same goes for the customer service department and practically for the work performed by anyone at Rawlplug Poland.

Will these changes help us and our customers in this period, which is such a tough time in economic terms?

I have absolutely no doubt about that. Sales force specialisation, as well as an adequate service  and tailor-made offering that caters to the customers’ needs is always the most appropriate commercial path to take. Although RAWLPLUG might not be able to fix the global economy, our changes will definitely enable many of our customers to function slightly better and more profitably with regard to fixings and fasteners, as well as power tools, of course.

Thank you for the interview, Jarek. I will share this with our customers. I know that this is merely an outline, and we will soon come back for more details and updates on the effects of the changes.

Thanks a lot and see you!