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| American Standard Brands President and CEO Jay Gould. Photo courtesy of American Standard |
American Standard Brands recently announced a new distribution agreement with Ferguson Enterprises. Ferguson will become an authorized American Standard wholesaler as of Jan. 1, 2014.
Ferguson will supply American Standard in its showrooms and branch locations, including sinks, tubs, toilets, faucets and other high-quality kitchen-and-bath products in the American Standard portfolio of brands.
“One of our core strategies is to expand availability and to expand our penetration into the marketplace,” American Standard President and CEO Jay Gould told Supply House Times.
Gould noted the company’s current market penetration is at 25%. He said the Ferguson agreement more than doubles that number.
“With Ferguson we feel that will give us another 30% market reach,” Gould said. “This is a very important deal for us and is critical in terms of our ability to continue to compete. We feel the increased percentage of penetration gives us a good number.”
Gould added another key part of the Ferguson agreement is the showroom aspect.
“Ferguson has 250 showrooms, which is really important to us,” he said. “Our current system lacked effective penetration into showrooms. We think it is going to help us hold specifications we win. Because of the previous low penetration we had a tendency not to carry through specifications on the commercial side of the business.”
American Standard products will begin arriving in Ferguson showrooms and counters in the first quarter of 2014.
The new partnership complements American Standard’s relationship with Wolseley in Canada, where the companies have partnered for many years. Ferguson and Wolseley Canada both are owned by Wolseley plc.
The Ferguson announcement is the third major move by American Standard and parent company http://global.lixil.co.jp/LIXIL Corp. in recent months. American Standard Brands was acquired by LIXIL in June and LIXIL recently announced the pending acquisition of GROHE Group — a move Gould said he anticipates will close within the next six months.
“Now, it’s all about execution,” he said. “We’ve leveled the playing field and now we need to execute to create value.”
