PartsSource President Ray Dalton and Vice President of Sales and Marketing Don Hubbard have learned not to let the lack of innovation in their industry stifle their ideas for improvement.
“It is far better to create a paradigm shift than it is to be caught up in one,” Hubbard says.
Like an auto parts store that sells all makes and models of car equipment, Dalton and Hubbard wanted PartsSource to provide replacement parts for all makes and modalities of medical equipment. At the time, no one hired salespeople to call on hospitals to secure orders or automated the parts purchasing process in the secondary market.
Dalton and Hubbard knew they needed a warehouse to stock high-demand parts, they needed to find open market parts at a low enough cost to support their purchase and resale, and they needed to identify prospective buyers to solicit and sell to on a consistent basis.
Over the years, PartsSource has overcome its share of challenges.
* Two members of its executive management team were replaced within its first year.
* Within two years, company headquarters moved from Solon to Bedford Heights to Twinsburg to accommodate growth. The company was so successful, it outgrew its new Twinsburg facility within 60 days of occupancy, and it recently broke ground on an addition which will double its 20,000 square footage.
* The company’s original database couldn’t handle the explosive growth, causing regular computer crashes and forcing it to “go manual.” It has since developed manual back-ups.
* Dalton and Hubbard had to convince small local distributors that PartsSource wouldn’t threaten their survival and could represent an increase in revenue if they worked together. The company also needed distributors to extend favorable credit and payment terms.
As a 74-percent principal owner in the firm, Dalton put up the initial seed money, deferred his compensation and covered payroll and other costs until PartsSource became revenue-positive. Today, it has a run rate of more than $21 million annually and has more than doubled in size each of the past two years.
HOW TO REACH: PartsSource, (877) 497-6412 or www.mypartssource.com
