With the hiring of Jerry Joyce, an industry veteran who has worked with most of New England's key distributors and electrical contractors over the past 35 years, and a renewed focus on providing customers with a broader package of services and products, Tulimieri and Associates, has turned its attention on the commercial/residential market.
The company, a Glastonbury, Conn.-based independent manufacturers' rep with a base in the industrial market, has always been a bit of a hybrid rep. It provides nontraditional rep services such as building panelboards and the design, development and testing of industrial controls for industrial and municipal customers such as wastewater treatment plants, factories and government buildings.
Dennis Tulimieri Sr., said the company began building its new commercial/residential focus because his team sensed that electrical distributors and end users in his market were looking for reps that could provide a broader package of services, along with logistical support, marketing, training and product expertise. One of the reasons for this trend, he said, is New England's quickly consolidating electrical market, where larger regional and national distributors want to partner with bigger rep firms. Tulimieri said distributors of this size are looking for reps who understand the importance of logistics in moving product through the distribution channel to end customers, particularly the challenges of coordinating deliveries through regional distribution centers.
As part of this effort, Tulimieri took on cable tray, fasteners and electronic wire and cable and hired Joyce as its senior vice president. Joyce has been a manufacturer, distributor and rep in New England, and is working to expand the business through his relationships with distributors and electrical contractors. He said that by sharing sales, technical and market data with distributor accounts, Tulimieri Associates helps its customers find job leads earlier and streamline the sales process.
“It's synergistic selling,” said Tulimieri, “To match up with a full-service distributor, we have to be a full-service rep. We have to provide the total solution, and get deeper at the distributor.”
While Tulimieri is known in the electrical industry for his interest in e-business and computerized operations, he believes the best approach is to blend these capabilities into his customer solutions as he targets the commercial and residential markets, instead of using them to reinvent the business.
“We have the bricks here, and we are smart enough to provide the clicks. What we didn't have in this new market was the relationships and the knowledge.”
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