Wesco Case

Jim Piraino, VP of Marketing for WESCO Distribution, Inc. has been tasked with addressing the lack of revenue growth from the National Accounts Program (NA). Jim has asked a couple of his branch managers and sales representatives for their insight. Their perspective was that the NA was too limited in potential and that the resources necessary were detracting from their other business (predominantly contractors).

After furthering reviewing the issue, it is fairly evident that the root issue is that WESCO is not clearly targeting a specific market with similar needs and desires. This in turn is affecting the dedication of resources at the local/branch level. As a result, the NA program is not being fully executed and this is harming the company's performance with other customers because resources are being spread too thin.

On the branch level, managers are diverting resources from contractors to the NA program and causing brand dilution. According to Larry Worthington, because of the high level of investment in serving the NA accounts, contractors are tempted to abandon the branches. It is important to note that this is due to the difference in clients' needs and desires. Contractors make up 465 million of WESCO's sales, are limited service clients, and require that WESCO maintain lower prices in order to keep their business. NA accounts are approximately 1 billion of WESCO's sales, are high service clients, and pricing is not the major factor in consideration.

While both of these client types require healthy relationships, industrial accounts require more time consuming visits and calls to maintain them. These two client types require different sales strategies and this is affecting the bottom line performance of both divisions. By catering to the industrial accounts, WESCO may potentially lose the business of the contractors. This divergence in focus is also affecting the rollout of NA programs because branches are