A conversation with Graybar’s Al Eddings

Graybar, like the handful of other distributors, is facing the onerous task of trying to transition from a company that provides a bunch of boxes to telcos into one that generates most of its revenue through services. Earlier this year, the company unveiled a new brand strategy that even included a slight update of the company’s logo—no small feat given that the brand mark had been around for 78 years. Al Eddings, vice president of communications/data products, recently talked with Executive News Editor Vince Vittore about Graybar’s transition.

On the brand shift: We’ve got a lot of tradition, but what happened over the last five years in particular is that distributors have had to develop some agility. We can’t just be the pick, pack and ship company anymore. Today there’s a big requirement to drive cost out of the business, where we’re doing those things with a lot more emphasis on cost reduction.

On the logo change: We’ve retained the font and we have a regard and respect for the reputation. But the link is very descriptive that we’re a logistics company.

On moving into operational outsourcing: We’ve learned from our heritage that we still have to respect and support the installer. We do provide presales technical recommendations. And to a large extent, information itself is a commodity. We can use the information and look at things like trends in pricing. We never intend to displace [the installer’s] work.

On new markets: Today we’re selling a lot of products that go into wireless, but I’m struggling to define a revenue stream [with Wi-Fi]. We’re following it closely, though. On the edge, there’s a lot of headend equipment that we’re following. Putting it together into an industry offer, I think we’re a little early on in the cycle. Voice-over-IP took about three years to turn into revenue. Now we’re selling a lot of VoIP solutions. I’m likening VoIP to wireless five years ago.