The forklift is a universal piece of equipment in your industry, and you know the stages of its lifespan well.
First, you work with a dealer to acquire one. Then, you hire an instructor to train your staff on its use and unique features. Next, you put it to work and maintain it as needed. That requires hiring a service technician. Eventually, the forklift needs replacement parts. Depending on your service provider, you might be able to order through them, or you might work with a different vendor. Finally, it comes time to sell off your now-used forklift. To get the best value and a credit toward a replacement, you'll work with a dealer once again.
If you use a different provider every time, that's five different companies for just one forklift. Expand that to your whole warehouse, and you could be working with dozens of companies just to keep your material handling equipment running. That's a lot of needless complication.
Instead, you could work with a single solution provider.
A single solution provider is a vendor that covers all your material handling needs. Working with a single company streamlines your entire process, letting you spend less time coordinating other suppliers and more time growing your business.
Read on to learn the top five reasons to work with a single-source provider.
Shopping around is costing you in the long run, and here’s how:
According to Microsoft, the average worker receives 117 emails every single day.
If that sounds like your inbox, the last thing you need is to clutter it further by trying to keep in touch with a dozen different vendors. Using a single-source provider consolidates all that messy communication into a single point of contact. You end up needing only one account specialist to address contracts, invoices, leases, service bookings, and more. Imagine managing your entire fleet of material handling equipment with a single email or phone call.
A single solution provider takes all that other busywork off your plate.
Multiple sourcing complicates progress and introduces new errors.
Imagine this scenario: your electric forklift is down. Your outside repair technician determines there's an issue with the battery. It'll need refurbishment or repair, but their company doesn't do that work. Now, you have to track down a different vendor to replace your battery and coordinate its delivery with the repair technician so your forklift gets back up and running ASAP. Playing telephone between these parties is inefficient; linking them up cuts you out of the loop, and either option is likely to cause delays and errors due to confusion and miscommunication.
A single solution provider eliminates all that stress and headache.
With a single source, that scenario goes very differently. The technician identifies the problem, gets your permission to proceed with the fix, and then coordinates with you on the installation. You waste less time, the technician knows exactly what to do, and your forklift is back up and running faster.
Single sourcing eliminates wasted time and energy, getting your equipment back to work.
Your loyalty is a valuable commodity you can leverage with single solution providers.
Committing to single sourcing opens doors that would otherwise be unavailable to you. It allows you to negotiate better contract rates, streamline setup costs, and take advantage of bulk discounts, among other benefits. Multiple sourcing doesn’t offer any of these advantages as those vendors have very little incentive to work with you on terms.
Only single solution providers have the motivation and capability to be flexible with their clients.
Remember the days before USBs, when everything had a unique cord, or when Blu-Ray was duking it out with DVD, trying to decide who would become the industry standard?
Multiple sourcing is a lot like that. The more inputs you have, the less likely they are to all work together neatly. Take automation, for example. If you purchase AGVs from one vendor and AMRs from another, you now have two different navigation systems, and the likelihood that they will integrate with your WMS without any extra steps is slim.
That issue could be avoided with single sourcing.
It's impossible for multiple vendors to all know the existing equipment in your warehouse and how each piece works together. However, a single source vendor becomes deeply familiar with your infrastructure and can provide the feedback you need to ensure your equipment fits seamlessly into your existing operations.
The familiarity needed for deep insight is only possible through single sourcing.
"It's cheaper to keep a customer than find a new one" is a well-known adage to everyone in sales.
In fact, the Harvard Business Review states that new customer acquisition costs five to twenty-five times more than customer retention. Any good sales team knows this intuitively and recognizes that the best way to retain a client is to build trust and provide exceptional support.
Choosing a single source provider tells the sales and support teams that your company is in this relationship for the long haul. That commitment signals to your vendor that there is a significant benefit to providing you with outstanding support and easy, transparent sales.
Business is a symbiotic relationship, and using a single source provider shows your organization is a team player.
A single source provider must check a lot of boxes to cover everything you need to keep your warehouse running.
That’s where Lilly’s one hundred years of experience lifts us above other providers. We’ve used a century of growth to expand our business offerings to include the following:
Whether you need new racking installed and the programming for your automated fleet to fill it or a new scissor lift and the training to use it, we have the experience, knowledge, and capacity to do it all. Let us save you time and money by taking the frustration out of sourcing.
To learn more about our single sourcing options, contact us online or visit one of our locations:
Arkansas - Jonesboro
Alabama - Dothan, Irondale, Mobile, and Montgomery
Georgia - Atlanta
Mississippi - Richland and Tupelo
Tennessee - Jackson and Memphis
Further Reading
AGV Navigation Systems 101
A Beginner’s Guide to Forklift Maintenance Agreements
Buying vs. Leasing a Forklift – What You Need To Know