Jim McBride is the president of Affiliated Warehouse Companies, headquartered in Hazlet, New Jersey. Affiliated handles marketing, sales, and third-party logistics for public warehouses across the US, as well as in Canada, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Europe.

Affiliated acts as an intermediary, helping customers find affordable solutions for their warehousing needs with a client roster that even includes HAZMAT-certified facilities and freezer storage.

Affiliated Warehouse Companies has been in business since 1953. Jim came on board in 1969 after a stint as a Merchant Marine and some time spent working for a Midwestern steamship company. While in the steamship business, he witnessed the growing use of containers for storage of large quantities of goods. These containers would then be hauled to public warehouses for storage prior to distribution.

Here we have Jim recognizing an emerging pattern and understanding how to move to capitalize on what he saw. He formed his business idea and then methodically moved into position to act on the assumptions he made about the emerging marketplace.

Spurred by this trend, Jim subsequently joined Affiliated. He began purchasing the company in parcels beginning in the late 70´s, and by 1991, he had bought out the original owners totally.

Affiliated was no stranger to technology, however. Jim says the business had been using computers since 1979. A familiarity with high-tech solutions made the decision to expand on the Internet a no-brainer.

"We had advertised nationally and internationally in trade publications, we went to trade shows and exhibitions and mailed out our own directories. When Patrick took an interest in the Internet, he said `your generation is used to finding warehouses that way, but there’s a whole new generation of people who are going to turn to their keyboards, and we’ve got to be up there.´ And he was exactly right."

"The Internet is now a very important part of our international marketing program. We were doing international marketing before the Internet, but now we definitely have total international exposure. We’re getting requests from warehouses throughout the world: Germany, Turkey, Indonesia, and Singapore…all over. It has strengthened our international marketing efforts to a huge degree."

As many business owners know, timing is everything. While Jim was getting his company online, a new business trend began to emerge, and Affiliated stood to reap the rewards of their early presence on the web. That trend? Outsourcing.

Again, we have a story about a company positioned to take advantage of an emerging trend. We cannot tell from the story how much of AWC’s position was deliberately planned and how much was coincidence. It does illustrate however, what you can do when you are in position to ride a wave.

Scenario planning provides a powerful way for a company to position itself to deal with emerging market possibilities and to develop the wherewithal to act on those developments. The lesson here is to appreciate the payoff that comes from being able to do it at will.

"The whole time that we were working towards a web site, another thing was occurring which was purely coincidental. Companies began to outsource functions: accounting, sales, and most importantly outsourcing their warehousing and distribution.

Consequently, these companies didn’t really understand our industry and didn’t know where to find us. So they turned to the Internet, and they found us."

"Many of the calls that we now get are from companies that have never used warehousing in the past, but they are beginning to outsource that function. Our decision to get involved with the Internet was greatly enhanced by this trend."

While returning customers may opt to contact Affiliated through mail, phone, or fax, the web site has become the main entry point for new customers, who often find Affiliated just by doing a simple web search. The site features both Affiliated and their clients, and if the client has a website for their warehouse, that site is linked.

Even first-time customers set up Affiliated´s site for ease of use. Jim and Patrick made sure that their interface was not only easy to use, but allowed their customers to customize their experience in order to get the information that suited their needs.

This is an example of being a thought partner with his customers. Jim understands what his customers need to facilitate their business plan and he’s prepared to set it up for them so that they get customized service when they first make contact with AWC. By doing that he’s creating a value beyond the basic service itself.

The clickable map feature, mentioned below, is another example of combining the intention of thought partnering and the execution of that intent in a practical way. Watch for other examples of thought partnering in the next few paragraphs.

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