Must Read | The State of Innovation 2024 Supplier Benchmarking During the spring, PPAI Media asked industry suppliers of all sizes a series of questions to assess their status on a number of technological fronts. The following survey questions, which were also used to score the 2024 PPAI 100’s Innovation category, reveal how suppliers at multiple competitive levels in the marketplace compare to one another. (All percentages have been rounded up.) The 2024 PPAI 100 is built on member feedback from the inaugural ranking. Among the suggestions that we’ve implemented to improve the program is grouping respondents into smaller competitive levels in the marketplace to produce more accurate data. After all, to paraphrase one respondent from last year, a supplier generating $50 million in revenue is very different from a supplier making $250 million in revenue. Suppliers: How does your firm stack up to the competition, and are there areas you can improve or update? TABLE 1: Is your firm utilizing integration technologies to provide order status or inventory to distributors through PDX, PromoStandards or other options? Yes No I Don’t Know/ Other PPAI 100 Suppliers 88% 6% 6% Suppliers $100M+ 93% 0% 7% Suppliers $50M-$100M 94% 0% 6% Suppliers $25M-$50M 88% 13% 0% Suppliers $5M-$25M 70% 20% 10% Suppliers Under $5M 67% 33% 0% Steve Ehlert, national general manager at Arch Promo Group – the No. 38 supplier in the PPAI 100 – was surprised by the high percentages across the board. “We’re working towards that goal, but we’re a long way off,” Ehlert says. “Every facility we have utilizes a different ERP system, which is challenging and expensive. One of my GMs was concerned about giving too much information to the distributors because situations change. Inventory that is there today may not be there tomorrow, and we don’t have a good way of ‘holding’ inventory while a quote is outstanding.” TABLE 2: Do you offer a secure online payment portal for customers to pay bills securely? Yes No Other PPAI 100 Suppliers 78% 16% 6% Suppliers $100M+ 86% 7% 7% Suppliers $50M-$100M 82% 18% 0% Suppliers $25M-$50M 100% 0% 0% Suppliers $5M-$25M 40% 40% 20% Suppliers Under $5M 83% 17% 0% “Secure payments are too important to ignore, and we are near 100% secure,” Ehlert says. “We’re working on getting ACH links, as that’d the preferred payment method. Credit cards can get away from you if you make it too easy. I’m surprised at the number of large distributors trying to pay by credit card and then complaining if there’s a fee.” ArtHead / Shutterstock.com 32 • OCTOBER 2024 • PPAI
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