Building Strategic Partnerships to Innovate Your Supply Chain

Over the past few years, supply chain experts at the executive level have had to pivot and innovate around rapidly changing conditions like geopolitical events, inflation fluctuation and recessionary concerns. This is in addition to the challenges their company’s supply chain already faced.

At Northern Tool + Equipment, we saw it as an opportunity to identify areas to increase efficiency by upgrading technology and maximizing our relationships. We found business-changing success in building strategic partnerships to help us in numerous areas, from improving automation to expanding our reach to maintaining mindfulness as a large company.

Improving Automation & Transportation Management

We recently implemented a new transportation management system with technology and support from C.H. Robinson. The upgrade allows us to receive real-time updates on the movement of products, shipments, deliveries and invoicing both internationally and domestically. The cloud-based platform takes tasks that previously needed to be done manually, automates them and gives the team real-time access to plan, order, execute, procure and settle merchandise sales more efficiently across the company.

Northern Tool + Equipment has an aggressive plan to grow and support both brick-and-mortar locations and e-commerce transactions. 

By implementing the latest transportation management technology in a post-pandemic setting, we can account for the steep disruptions supply chains can experience and offer solutions to meet the needs of today’s employees and customers.

Expanding Direct to Consumer Reach

What business isn’t trying to gain new customers, or at least meet them where they are at? We’ve recently partnered with Stord to expand our reach to western states like Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington. The Las Vegas-based facility allows us, as a company, to reduce shipping costs and shipping times. We know our customer base in these states ranges from serious DIYer to professional tradespeople, and it’s a priority for us to be able to support them with our most in-demand products and reduce potential barriers to accessing the right tools for the job. This new development for our company is part of our ongoing supply chain advancement efforts to expand and optimize our distribution network.

"The right partnerships will prioritize 100% transparency and technology integration and have goals strategically aligned for growth together"

Consumer Mindfulness

One of the toughest challenges to retailers like Northern Tool + Equipment is the size and weight of a lot of the products we sell. Through a partnership with Packsize, we were able to cut our corrugate spending by 30% and helped improve sustainability. With nearly half of our products being shipped to consumers, we need to find a partner dedicated to getting customers' orders to them damage-free while decreasing the amount of packaging and waste associated with shipping large tools and equipment. We’ve seen the financial impact this partnership can make, and it builds credibility with our consumers by showing we’re dedicated to finding sustainable solutions while still delivering a quality product.

One of the biggest takeaways in my career working with supply chain logistics and building company partnerships, is to make sure the core missions of each organization are aligned in purpose. You want to partner with companies who will continue working with you in the rapidly changing supply chain environment. The right partnerships will prioritize 100% transparency and technology integration and have goals strategically aligned for growth together. This helps ensure the relationship is built to grow beyond the first project.