Given the events of the past two years, it’s easy to see that we’re living in historical times, to put it politely. But if we were to travel back 50 years to 1972, we’d see that political and social turmoil was equally thick, from the war in Vietnam to the Watergate scandal. On a lighter note, 1972 also brought us the video game Pong, “The Godfather” and Home Box Office (HBO).
Also making its debut that year was the Hank Welfare Company, which would later be christened with a more descriptive moniker—Carolina Wholesale Office Machines. A separate company, Arlington Industries, bowed in 1973 as a distributor to address the needs of imaging resellers. Larry Huneycutt would eventually become the sole owner of Carolina Wholesale and bring both Arlington and another firm (Digitek) together in a distributor juggernaut known today as ARLINGTON.
The technology offered by then-Hank Welfare Co. has evolved much like the politics and pop culture icons—after all, typewriters were the cornerstone of the office environment in ’72. Interestingly, if someone requires service or supplies for a trusty, reliable old Smith Corona, ARLINGTON can still address those needs. But while fax machines, word processors and other relics of the office space have come and gone, not much has changed in terms of ARLINGTON’s core mission: serving the needs of its reseller partners.
We chatted with Brent Martin, director of marketing for ARLINGTON, to gain perspective about the company’s 50-year journey, grappling with the pandemic and supply chain shortages, new offerings to the office space and an e-commerce vehicle that better enables resellers to do business with the distro giant. Plus, with the help of Huneycutt’s nephew—NFL punter Bradley Pinion—ARLINGTON is assisting countless people within the communities they serve through a fundraising campaign that benefits Convoy of Hope.
Provide some insight into Arlington’S financial performance during 2021. What were some of the variables that played into how the company performed?
Martin: We experienced a substantial increase in revenue over 2020, which is encouraging considering how light business was due to COVID-19. We’re on track to exceed our growth goal and budget. Considering we always try to be aggressive with that number, that’s quite positive. During the last four months, we’ve seen business get closer to 2019 levels, so we’re encouraged to see that we’re heading back to normal. 2020 hit our numbers hard; we suffered a bad Q2 and Q3, like most did following the shutdown. So needless to say, we are encouraged with the way business has turned heading into 2022.
A lot of the rebound was a result of people returning to the office, with higher supplies demand on the imaging side. Schools came back strong after a difficult 2020, and even the government sector is returning. To some degree, our aftermarket toner has done well, which can probably be attributed to the supply chain issues we’re seeing with OEM product.
What were some of the highlights for Arlington during the past year?
Martin: One thing we’ve been intentional about and focused on is growing our e-commerce relationships, both with our resellers and vendors. We made that a priority in 2021 and saw growth in both areas. We’ve expanded our customer base of e-commerce users, whether that’s EDI or third-party platforms, to transact and do business with us. We’ve done that to a degree with our vendors. It’s streamlined business and really helped us this year. Additionally, we’ve expanded our parts catalog, so we’re offering a lot of copier and printer parts that we didn’t have previously. We’ve also added janitorial/sanitation and breakroom supplies. We’re always looking for new pockets of business that could help our resellers, and we’ve seen some success since launching them last summer.
Since last fall, we’ve really made an effort to reach out to our communities and various charitable programs. In doing some things outside of selling toner and hardware, it’s really helped our company morale. There’s great value in making an impact on people’s lives.
One of the biggest talking points of the year was the supply chain challenges confronting many businesses on a global basis. Talk about your experience through the lens of a distributor.
Martin: Obviously, our goal is to distribute products, and inventory is essential to that piece of the business. We found that maintaining communication with our resellers was the key. We’re doing that through marketing. Our account executive team is great. We have a tremendous staff that keeps themselves focused on our customers’ business and where they’re at, which has helped us navigate through the supply chain issues. Our purchasing team is another outstanding group of people within our organization. They’ve been working tirelessly with our vendors to determine where they may be facing inventory constraints while also developing forecasting and strategies. All these things help accommodate fulfillment of current needs and future inventory needs.
Are there any products that are particularly difficult to source?
Martin: We’ve seen challenges across the board. We don’t just do imaging supplies, we offer everything from shredders to calculators to time clocks, and every piece of that business has witnessed some type of issue. On the toner/supply side of things, in some small way, it’s benefitted us in the aftermarket toner business. We maintain our own inventory of supplies, so when we’ve had issues with OEMs, being able to provide that aftermarket toner has been beneficial. But the aftermarket supplies side hasn’t been devoid of any issues. For the most part, we’ve been able to maintain inventory on those supplies.
With estimates that the current supply chain situation could fester until the middle of 2022 and perhaps beyond, how is Arlington mobilizing to mitigate product and supplies disruption?
Martin: We have the most incredible, experienced group in our purchasing team. The great relationships they’ve forged with our vendors, and their ability to forecast and collaborate with them, has put ARLINGTON in the best possible position for desirable outcomes. While it’s been smooth sailing so far, the one thing the past two years have taught us is to be ready for anything. At this point, most of our vendors are optimistic about meeting our needs. We’re getting positive indications that the situation will normalize sometime in the first half of 2022.
ARLINGTON is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. There have been many challenges during that time, from the Great Recession to the pandemic. What has been the key to thriving?
Martin: Looking back to 1972, when our company began, there have certainly been a lot of technological changes. It’s remarkable to think we started selling and refurbishing typewriters. Although not many people are using them in the office today, we still carry typewriters and ribbons, and still service them. The key has been finding products that have synergy with the office space. We evolved into fax machines and word processors, then copiers/printers and their supplies. It’s all about staying attuned to reseller needs, and they’ve dictated the direction we’ve taken during the last 50 years.
It all starts with our leadership. Larry Huneycutt has been president of the company for over 30 years, and he has close relationships with everyone on staff, including sales reps and managers. Those account representatives, in turn, have great relationships with our reseller customers. The communication within our organization has been vital, and it’s long been centered on addressing the needs of our customers, wherever those needs take them.
It’s been three years since your brands were consolidated under the ARLINGTON flag. At the onset, your goal was to smooth over customer overlapping scenarios and combine the best of the three entities into one. Talk a little about that journey.
Hank Welfare Company from 1979
Martin: One thing we realized is the power of our three brands was very strong. There was loyalty to Carolina Wholesale and Digitek, and they required a lot of attention on our part over the last three years. When we consolidated and went under the umbrella of ARLINGTON, it created a little confusion for Carolina Wholesale and Digitek, regardless of how much press it received and the notification letters we sent out. Fortunately, our sales staff remained unchanged in the relationships they have with those resellers. It became important for communication to be regular between our account representatives and customers.
The biggest impact we had was with what I’d call the occasional reseller, those clients who aren’t buying from ARLINGTON every week or month. For them, there was a bit of a misunderstanding as to where Carolina Wholesale and Digitek went, so we had to go back and let them know that we’re still ARLINGTON. Users can still click on any of the URLs and it will redirect them to our website. That won’t change anytime soon. We still need to remind people that Carolina Wholesale and Digitek are alive and well under the ARLINGTON brand.
Are there any plans for geographic expansion? Or are you satisfied with the current configuration?
Martin: We’re blessed to have an executive team looking at ways to expand and grow our business. While we’re pleased with our current alignment, we also understand that we always need to look at new ways to grow our business, either through expansion or different configurations of ARLINGTON. Nothing is currently on the table. Any acquisitions would need to make sense for us, and we’ll evaluate opportunities that present themselves, especially those with the potential to provide expanded solutions for our customers, improve our business and make us stronger as an organization.
Your company has done much to promote the Touchback to Giveback campaign, in conjunction with Convoy of Hope. How has this program, now in its second season, been progressing?
Martin: To say that it’s exceeded our expectations is an understatement. We launched this program in 2020 in conjunction with Larry Huneycutt’s nephew, Bradley Pinion, the punter for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Last year, we created a program through which people can donate money for every touchback that results from his kickoffs. We raised $70,000 for Convoy of Hope, an organization committed to fighting hunger and poverty around the world, and that money was used in local communities. In 2021, Larry and Bradley set a goal of $100,000, but as of Christmas week, we’d raised over $300,000 for Convoy of Hope, thanks to the generosity of employees, customers, the imaging community, local business and churches. Their response to our social media posts and emails was incredible. Funds raised in 2020 were used for an event down in South Carolina and another in Tampa. We’re excited to see what we can do with these funds in 2022 to help people with food drives in our various communities.
Back in December, when the tornados struck the Midwest, Convoy of Hope was out there the following day providing food and other items of need for folks who had lost their homes. That’s the mission of Convoy of Hope, to serve people who find themselves in disaster-type situations, or to provide relief for hardships in general.
As a marketing person who’s spent 25 years selling toner, ink and office products, it’s awesome to promote something of this nature that’s designed to help people. It’s been really refreshing and exciting to see what people have done. But it isn’t us, it’s the generosity of others that’s been the key. I think we’ll continue to find ways to bring attention to other causes and ways we can help others.
Do you have a focus on any MPS programs?
Martin: We still have a relationship with Nubeprint, and we have the ControlPrint MPS program. This past year, Nubeprint joined forces with Power eCommerce and now they’re PowerMPS. It’s a cloud-based platform tied into Nubeprint MPS to a storefront service management. It will be more like an ERP this year, a well-rounded MPS solution for website e-commerce. We’re working closely with the PowerMPS team. We set a goal to be focused on e-commerce in general, not just MPS. A lot of that is high-end MPS from the reseller side. From our perspective, it’s essentially providing inventory and a solution to digitally transact those orders to us, whether through EDI or using a third party such as ECI Software Solutions’ e-automate or PowerMPS. We’re trying to become more electronic-ordering focused, so we’re providing solutions that are needed instead of really being focused on the managed print side of things as a distributor.
A lot of your reseller partners do need e-commerce solutions on their end.
Martin: We certainly realize that with our resellers, the learning curve is vast in spectrum, as far as where everybody’s at from the smallest to largest reseller. We want to be able to provide something such as PowerMPS to the reseller that doesn’t want to invest a lot of their own time and energy into it. Maybe they just need help walking through it, and that’s where that solution will work. There are solutions from companies such as ECI and others out there that we can help them with. Of course, they have to have their own systems, but they can come to us and we’ll work with them through our IT team to make it happen.
Is there anything new on the horizon from a program or partnership standpoint?
Martin: The jan/san product line expansion was big for us. We’ll continue to grow and will leverage some new programs that we’ll receive details about from our current vendors. We’ll be doing a number of things around our 50th anniversary, and continuing to support those in need around our communities. We’re going to have fun taking a look back at what’s made our business grow, how our customers have grown and evolved, and how our vendor history has changed since 1972. We’ll hold monthly contests and likely some online events to celebrate. We hope this brings a lot of reflection to our resellers as well; they’re the reason we’re here, and they’ve been with us for so long. The anniversary will be an all-year celebration, so keep your eyes peeled for more details.
What are Arlington’S primary goals for 2022?
Martin: Our central focus is always going to be our resellers and growing their business. The goal is to grow the business of ARLINGTON and our reseller partners, and that entails anticipating their needs today and tomorrow. We’ll continue to expand our e-commerce offering. As PowerMPS grows, we’ll grow with them. We have e-commerce champions within our group, so we can accommodate anyone who wants to onboard with any third-party or custom solution. We’ll continue to expand our product mix, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see us grow into new, yet-to-be-determined areas. In the end, it’s all about helping our resellers adapt as they change and deal with the many different challenges confronting them. We’ll be keeping our eyes open for any way we can assist and support them moving forward.
