The subject is hard to get excited about, more difficult yet to understand. Sexy it's definitely not. Yet from a number of quarters I find it being called "the biggest single issue" facing the electrical wholesaling industry today. "It's like a nuclear bomb," one distributor told me. "But if it doesn't go off...."

Now after that build-up, when I tell you what the issue is, you're going to shake your heads in disbelief. After that, about two sentences into my explanation, you'll give a big "ho-hum" and tune out. Which is precisely how we ended up in the untenable position that we're in today—where the absence of this one thing is threatening the electrical wholesaling industry's very survival, say those knowledgeable about the subject.

The issue on which the industry's success hinges is the use of a standard fielded database by manufacturers who sell through electrical distributors. This fielded database is simply all the pertinent information about each item or SKU or particular product needed to conduct business, contained in a standard format. Among the fields included are: UPC number, catalog number, description, weight, unit of measure, quantity, package quantity, price and numerous other descriptors. "That fielded database standard set is the building block, the foundation of all electronic commerce in our industry," says David Crum, president of Crum Electric Supply, Casper, Wyo.; chairman of NAED and one of the initiators of the industry's Electronic Commerce Council, which operates under the wing of NAED. Once the industry is successful at implementing this fielded database standard, he notes, "then we will be able effectively to solve the higher level communication problems—bar coding, EDI, flat file communications, networking, eventually evolving to Internet and other kinds of communication. All of that is built on this fielded database issue."

A fielded database standard for this industry is in place already, worked out by a joint committee of NAED, NEMA and NEMRA. The standard is now available from NAED (contact Steve Bouza by phone at 203-761-4900 or e-mail at sbouza@interramp.com).

The groundwork—the tool—is in place. Now what needs to happen is this: Manufacturers need to get their databases in order and in line with the fielded database standard. Today, only 53 manufacturers have put their information into the industry's standard fielded database format. This number is not enough to get the industry truly moving down the road to full electronic commerce.

Over the years, electrical manufacturers haven't necessarily kept their databases state-of-the-art, I'm told. Neither have many distributors demanded a change in that situation, probably because, as one distributor admitted to me, "We didn't recognize the problem." Until now.

Now, faced with competitive pressures on one hand and new communications capabilities (tantalizingly available, but out of reach without the standard fielded database) on the other, they are starting to ask some hard questions and make some hard demands.

Bringing the industry's databases up to snuff and onto one standard is not something distributors can do by themselves. The information originates with the manufacturers, and they have to "take ownership" of the problem and implement its solution. The directive to do so needs to come from the top executive—the issue is that important. I urge each of you top manufacturer executives reading this column to recognize the importance of this industry-wide initiative, then make sure your company starts putting its databases in order.

Yes, this isn't the usual subject matter to come before a CEO; but because the putting in place of a standard fielded database cuts across all functional areas of a manufacturing facility, getting this project started and making sure it's seen through will require a directive from the CEO.

As one distributor puts it, "If (electrical manufacturers) support the electrical distribution channel as their best channel to go to market, they can't keep us non-competitive. They have to take ownership and responsibility in the creation of these clean databases."

Sexy, it's not. But it's the single biggest issue facing the industry.

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