IT_Internet Matchmaking - ThomasNet

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Thomas Industrial Network: Internet Matchmaking
by ROBERT S. BENCHLEY |
■ George W. Short, vice
president of finance and
planning at Thomas Industrial
Network, remembers
a mantra floating
around the company not George W. Short
long ago: “We don’t want to be a
buggy whip.”
But there’s not much of a chance of that
happening. In the past 12 years, Thomas
Industrial Network has morphed from be-
K eats
Manufacturing Co., a Wheeling, Ill.-based custom
manufacturer of small metal parts, needed to generate more
qualified leads.
Astro Manufacturing & Design, Inc., a custom machining and
fabricating company outside Cleveland, wanted to double its size
in the next 5 years.
Marketing Masters, Inc., a leading OEM of clip nuts, inserts,
and fasteners near Seattle, wanted to reach prospects in their
time of need.
Three companies with three needs came to one place for a
solution: Thomas Industrial Network.
For Keats, the recession hit hard. Because Keats had been
built through word-of-mouth and traditional sales methods, it
had virtually no online presence.
Keats’ management team developed a strategy to diversify the
industries it serves via Thomas Industrial Network’s new Custom
SPEC program. A new website was developed with a portfolio of
Keats’ prior custom work, and product and services information are
grouped into six main categories. Engineers looking for information
can even submit detailed RFQs (requests for quotations) online.
Quotes have more than doubled in the first year of the new
program, says Matt Eggemeyer, vice president and COO at Keats.
“We never thought we would have the opportunity to quote over
$2 million worth of work so quickly.”
As a custom manufacturer, Astro sees every customer request
ing a catalog publisher—the multivolume
Thomas Register of American Manufacturers,
known more familiarly as “the
green books,” was a must on every industrial
company’s bookshelves for decades—
to a cutting-edge, internet-based matchmaker
that connects suppliers and manufacturers
with an efficiency that would
make a dating service green with envy.
The company’s origins date from 1898,
when Harvey Mark Thomas first published
a catalog called Hardware and Kindred
Trades. Over the years, the catalog grew to
Three Companies, Three Solutions, One Source
a resource linking buyers with 650,000 distributors,
manufacturers, and service companies
in more than 67,000 industrial categories.
Thomas Industrial Network is one
of four subsidiaries of parent Thomas Publishing
Co., LLC, which is still privately
owned by descendants of its founder.
The information contained in the green
books first went online in 1995
—a time when much of the world did not
yet have email—making the company a pioneer
in digital information sourcing. Since
that time, as the industrial world migrated
as a new challenge. That made the goal of doubling its
size—to $100 million in revenue in 5 years—another ordeal
entirely. “We have a lot to prove at the outset of a new business
relationship,” says Rich Peterson, vice president of business
development.
For Astro, the solution was to develop a web presence that
functions like a sales team. First, a new website offers a
portfolio of past work and highlights its technologies. Astro also
secured top-ranked positions on ThomasNet.com. Finally, Thomas
Industrial Network developed an effective SEO program.
And for Marketing Masters, which supplies much of its product
line to the airline/aerospace industry, sales tend to come in high
volume. Since Marketing Masters makes more than 100 different
fasteners and inserts, Jacques Gauron, vice president of business
development, wanted to make part selection easier.
Thomas Industrial Network stepped in, rebuilt the website,
and digitized the paper spec sheets and
the print catalogs. Sharing the company’s product specs online
simplified the customer service process. The online strategy also
included an SEO program and announcement of new products on
ThomasNet News, the companion to ThomasNet.com.
“Everyone goes to the web now,” says Gauron. By having our
products available in the right place, at the right time, when
customers are searching, we now are finding a new opportunity to
educate the market.”
➥ R.S.B.

to the internet for its information needs,
Thomas Industrial Network ceased publishing
its print directories in 2006. “Systems
that were designed for print
weren’t going to take us into the
information age, into the future,”
says Short.
The company’s flagship product,
ThomasNet.com, has become
the go-to place for engineers,
purchasing agents, facilities
managers, and others for
free product sourcing and supplier discovery.
The real work is done with the sellers,
from small to enterprise level, all with
an integrated suite of solutions:
■ Managing and sharing product data
internally and across
sales channels
■ Online CAD publishing
(2D and 3D)
■ Online catalogs
(with or without ecommerce)
■ Visibility on ThomasNet.com
■ Social media, email marketing, and
SEO service
■ Website design
Michael Sprague
“Our Navigator platform is the core
technology that helps clients manage product
data,” says Short. “We found that we
were driving traffic to the suppliers’ websites,
but the information wouldn’t be presented
properly because not everybody presented
information in the same format.
When people request more information,
without proper content and design there is
no engagement.”
With everything flowing through
Navigator, that problem has been
eliminated. “Thomas invested a lot of
money in a data-centric management
tool,” says Michael Sprague, director
of ebusiness development.
“We don’t maintain the data for
the manufacturers; we empower
them to do it once it’s built out,”
says Sprague. “Navigator helps manufacturers
get the data in a single place and
then share it outside their four walls.”
This can be a big benefit to sales. “There is
often a huge disconnect between what a
manufacturer has and what a distributor
knows about,” he says.
Short describes the company’s internal
development of customer solutions as an
ongoing process. “This past year, we had
an ‘innovators’ challenge’ inside the company
to have groups put together plans to
drive the business,” he says. “They presented
their ideas to senior management,
and it led to lots of changes.
“Custom SPEC, which helps custom
manufacturers demonstrate their expertise
and showcase recent projects, was created
because we recognized that companies
that don’t make standardized products
need a different form of sales help,” says
Short. “The Social Media Program, which
helps industrial companies build brand
awareness, demonstrate thought leadership,
and attract leads, came from people
in our production department, who saw the
need after talking with our customers.” He
says the new Enterprise Solutions Group
helps manufacturers build a set of master
product data that they can share through
their own organization and provide to
distributors and channel partners, along
with downloadable 2D/3D CAD drawings.
“We embed the metadata into the model,”
says Sprague. “You get more than a picture;
all the data goes into the bill of materials.
Now purchasing has exactly what they need
to make the buy.”
The most recent offering features enhanced
company profiles that let suppliers
stand out from their competitors by
moving from a one-page listing on Thomas-
Net.com to a more comprehensive multipage
listing. The company’s research reveals that
most buyers require in-depth information
to compare suppliers and make purchasing
decisions.
This constant evolution and addition
of services is part of the company’s DNA,
says Short. “We hire smart people with an
entrepreneurial spirit,” he says, “and we
invest for the long term. We have always
been based heavily on research. That keeps
us focused on behavior. We can measure the
actions of visitors to our site, and that helps
demonstrate the return on investment. At
the same time, however, there are fewer
barriers to entry today, so you have to
move quickly.”
Robert S. Benchley is a Miami-based business
writer. Send your comments about this article to
itletters@infotoday.com.
This article is reprinted from the June 2012 issue of Information Today, published by Information Today, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Individuals
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