Aftermarket Insider Issue 80 - (Page 20)

Bill Maggs Says Data is What Drives the Success of Pronto Members I’ve been around the auto parts business long enough to remember long racks of paper catalogs and expandable binders full of colorful price sheets … it seems like yesterday. But, today, the members of National Pronto rely on electronic product and catalog information to drive their success. In fact, we’ve made strict compliance with the industry data standards a top criterion in evaluating our vendor partners. Bill Maggs President National Pronto Association Almost everything we do as a distribution group is affected by the quality and completeness of the electronic information we get from our suppliers. Here are just a few of the benefits our members see when our suppliers comply with the industry standards – ACES and PIES: • Faster new product introductions result when we have complete information to populate our purchasing systems • Increased sales occur almost immediately after we receive quality product images and descriptive marketing copy • Fewer cataloging errors and reduced new part returns result when suppliers invest in perfecting their electronic catalog information – filling application holes, eliminating duplicate listings and fi xing ambiguous listings At National Pronto, our data warehouse runs so much better with part numbers, units of measure and other product data that conforms to industry standards. You wouldn’t guess how disruptive a missing character could be, until you try to process a few thousand of them. If I had one message to an automotive supplier it would be to respect your data and invest in quality content the same way you invest in the quality of your product. Pronto was one of the original supporters of the AWDA Minimum Common Requirement. This is a reduced set of PIES product data requirements, designed to meet the most common requirements of warehouse distributors. We urge every one of our suppliers to support this file format and follow the specification to the letter. For our part, at Pronto we follow the standards religiously and do not impose unique requirements on our partners. In return we ask that our suppliers help us sell more of their product with complete, current, graphical, standards-based content. Honestly, I don’t miss the days of paper catalogs and price sheets. But for our warehouse and store members to get the full benefit of electronic information, it’s got to be bit-perfect. When our vendors invest in the quality of their content, we can sell more of their product. And that makes both of us happy. About the author: William D. (Bill) Maggs has been President of National Pronto Association since 2000. Since graduating from Northwood University in 1976 Bill has been involved with Pronto as either an employee or a member throughout his entire career. Bill has served on the AWDA Board of Governors since 2005 and was elected Chairman in 2011. The National Pronto Association is an organization of independent automotive aftermarket PRONTO Warehouse Distributors, PRONTO Auto Parts Stores and PRONTO Auto Service Centers all of whom take advantage of a multitude of services provided by the Association. Pronto is composed of 93 independent distributors in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) :: 7101 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 1300, Bethesda, MD 20814 Web: www.aftermarket.org/technology :: E-mail: technology@aftermarket.org http://www.aftermarket.org/Technology/Executive-Perspectives.aspx http://www.aftermarket.org/technology

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Aftermarket Insider Issue 80

Aftermarket Insider Issue 80
Contents
President’s Message
Association News
Government Affairs
Government Affairs
Head of the Class
Head of the Class
Member Profile
Toolbox
Impact Award
Market Intelligence
Market Intelligence
Executive Perspective

Aftermarket Insider Issue 80