SKF South Africa (Pty) Ltd’s recent appointment of Anton Theunissen as Distributor Development Manager for South Africa and neighbouring countries ensures that the authorised distributor program remains streamlined to sustainably extend product and service delivery to customers. “This is the start of an exciting journey for me with the SKF Group”, comments Theunissen. “SKF’s authorised distributor program is a strategy to build sustainable and profitable customer relations in partnership with our authorised industrial distributors who are key to SKF’s success in this market; even a small increase in the distribution market share can lead to a large increase in profit for SKF.”

Theunissen highlights four areas that provide a foundation for the distribution strategy: “Effective channel management which ensures a good distribution footprint in the market and active business growth; education of SKF and distributor employees; efficiency and cost effectiveness of our supply chain and finally, the differentiation of our distributors through specific programs that offer value and cost savings to our customers.”

According to Theunissen, the distributor program offers a three-way value add, “to authorised SKF distributors, customers and SKF.” He considers access to the extensive sales and engineering knowledge base, while being able to take full advantage of SKF’s modern supply chain processes and inventory management systems, as highly beneficial to SKF distributors. “SKF South Africa’s knowledgeable engineering team has the capability to design and deliver complex solutions across all five SKF core technologies: Bearings and units, seals, lubrication systems, power transmission, mechatronics, and mechanical and reliability engineering services.”

“We are in a position to work closely with SKF engineering teams in Europe and the USA to offer valuable engineering capabilities to both OEM and end user customers in South Africa. To complement this, the association with the well-known and extremely powerful SKF brand makes for a successful combination that offers an authorised SKF distributor a competitive advantage,” adds Theunissen.

Theunissen points out that it is the customer who ultimately benefits from the numerous advantages to SKF of having an authorised distributor network. “We satisfy our customers by applying our knowledge in the five core technologies within this distribution partnership. As a direct result we differentiate ourselves from other commodity suppliers in the industrial market who depend on a cost base approach.”

“These distribution partnerships are of the utmost importance to SKF because they result in an improvement of our customers’ performance as well as cost reduction,” observes Theunissen. “They are the preferred sales channel to serve the industrial aftermarket and are an extension of our national sales, forever building and maintaining customer/supplier relationships at an operational level. Situated in strategic geographical locations comprising a network of 29 South African distributor branches complemented by additional representation in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, our authorised distributors are generally in the ideal position to support and serve customers in the dedicated manner all customers deserve.”

Theunissen acknowledges that currently all South African SKF authorised distributors are loyal mono-brand distributors dedicated to purchasing as much as 95% of their entire product range only from SKF. “In return, SKF intention will continue to grow with existing distributors. If mapped against industry presence in South Africa, the current network still allows for expansion in some of the prominent local mining areas. A significant percentage of South Africa’s economy is driven through its rich mineral deposits and resultant mining activities,” notes Theunissen. He adds that although mining will continue to remain a focus, various other markets have become attractive future business opportunities for SKF.

Theunissen warns that increasing demand for minerals and energy will place additional pressure on all industrial segments to perform at improved profitability and revenue levels and he points out that this also holds true for SKF South Africa. The main focus of SKF’s authorised distributor program is to continue to be a clear and dedicated customer emphasis while creating opportunities and capturing increased market share by means of an improved distribution network footprint and continued growth within all five core technologies. Market sectors that will see additional focus includes metals, cement, pulp and paper, and food and beverage.“SKF will remain committed to its authorised distributor programme and will continue to support and endeavour to grow with all its existing authorised distributors. Where the demand exists for additional partners and specialised distributors, SKF will use the normal stringent procedures to identify the most suitable partners at the time. With growing international investment in emerging industries in the rest of Africa, one of the key objectives will be to grow SKF’s footprint in these areas to ensure that we ‘equip the rest of the African continent with SKF knowledge’,” remarks Theunissen.

Theunissen believes that, “the power of knowledge will be driving education through the many training programs and electronic forums offered by SKF to ensure the most knowledgeable distributor sales associates in the market. Customers’ buying behaviours is adapting to the electronic advances of our environment and today they are far more informed before making buying decisions. The trend to use web based applications and electronic interface formats is an important consideration for successful business relationships in the future. SKF is actively pursuing e-commerce platforms and other web based tools to ensure that we not only stay abreast of development in this field, but offer our customers and distributors the most advanced options and ease of trade.”

In closing, Theunissen says, “As our authorised distributors only stock and sell quality SKF branded products, our customers can buy with confidence from any authorised SKF distributor. Our distributor network is an extension of our product and service delivery, gives us the best route to market and enables us to supply the full SKF value offering to customers on time, every time, anywhere in the country, in other words, ‘equip our customers with SKF knowledge’.”