In early 2004, a group of sales professionals with collective decades of experience in the field of retail lighting and electrical supply distribution came to longtime industry leader Consolidated Electrical Distributors with a proposition: they would start a new branch, CED National, dedicated to serving the lighting and electrical supply needs of national accounts, from retailers to restaurants and beyond. As one of the largest electrical distributors in the U.S., with over 500 profit centers across the country, CED really didn’t need a new way of doing business—but the company took a chance on the new nationally-focused branch. They’ve been glad they did.

Now in its second year of operation, Fort Worth-based CED National has taken flight. Ray Sefcik says, “We didn’t reinvent the wheel for CED; we were value-added for CED. CED was willing to take a chance on us.” The gamble paid off; CED National posted the most successful opening in the history of the company.

The secret to CED National’s success is in their approach: they focus solely on the unique needs of national accounts, forming working relationships with both clients and suppliers to achieve superior customer service. CED National specializes in custom lighting, retail and restaurant lighting, food service lighting, and high tech lighting, and strives to be the ideal supply partner. Its clients include national retailers and restaurant chains such as Pier 1 Imports, Taco Cabana, CiCi’s Pizza, and Garden Fresh, as well as other businesses with locations across the country, such as general contractor Elder-Jones, Inc. CED National absolutely guarantees on-time delivery of items. “You can only guarantee it if it’s all in your hands,” Sefcik says. He works with clients, often doing takeoffs from their blueprints, to develop inventory that matches the clients’ expansion plans. Communication is the key; keeping in touch with clients about their plans enables CED National to update its inventory as clients change store configurations or add new ones.

In the retail and restaurant business, time is money. After investing in an expensive marketing campaign that alerts consumers to the scheduled grand opening of a new location, a company cannot afford to postpone such an event. “That’s lost revenue,” Sefcik says, and adds proudly, “We’ve never delayed an opening.”

CED National Manager Ray Sefcik calls the practice “just-in-time inventory.” For a national chain opening a new store on a particular date, “They’ve got everything tied to that opening date. Our materials are going to be there for them.” The normal wholesale turnaround of two or three days just won’t cut it in the national accounts arena, where down-to-the-wire scheduling is a matter of course.

Another “given” in the national accounts arena is that show-stopping problems will occur and must be handled as quickly and efficiently as possible. In its focus on A-plus customer service, CED National remains flexible, never limiting itself to a pre-supposed definition of what an electrical supply distributor should offer. “We don’t have tunnel vision here,” says Sefcik. “You have to be expansive; you have to be willing to diversify. You’ve got to be willing to take a risk—but not on the customer’s end.” Striving to vastly exceed expectations, CED National keeps some unusual inventory on hand as a result of creatively solving last-minute problems its customers encountered in opening new locations: vacuum cleaners, store-opening tool kits, even gas cans. One customer is talking with CED National about margarita machines. “We want to go miles beyond what anyone else will do,” Sefcik says. “We know we can’t be all things to all people, but that’s not going to stop us from trying.”

Solving problems for customers isn’t limited to an occasional unusual inventory order. Stephanie Duvall and other CED National staff have designed lighting and power systems when customers need products that simply don’t exist. “We’re not going to limit ourselves to just what’s out there,” Duvall says. “It’s hard for us to say, ‘No, it can’t be done.’ We’re going to do our best to come up with a solution.” Stephanie finds this aspect of her work extremely rewarding, as it emphasizes the importance of building partnerships with both manufacturers and customers.

Building strong working relationships with manufacturers, suppliers, and customers is vital to CED National’s success. Approaching customer service with a partnership attitude, in which all parties work together toward a common goal, enables CED National to provide consistent product, pricing, and deliveries. Maintaining inventory can be tricky in the fast-paced world of national chain expansion. Norton estimates that CED National works with about four hundred vendors, but emphasizes that the stock on hand is never static. Sefcik agrees, saying, “We’re not the standard supply house. The number of product lines that we handle isn’t as important as the number of product lines that we’re able to handle—which is basically any electrical product made. We’re not going to carry everything that brand X makes just to say we’ve got it.” Sefcik characterizes inventory as “simple but not easy,” with strong communication the key to making it easier. He stays in touch with customers about their evolving prototype drawings, and CED National’s inventory evolves along with its customers’ needs.

Jim Tyson, Director of Corporate Purchasing for Pier 1 Imports, calls CED National’s approach “very, very professional. It’s a very painless way of doing business for us.” Tyson’s corporate purchasing group handles all non-resale supply issues for Pier 1 stores. “We’ve got dozens and dozens of suppliers,” Tyson says. “We buy everything besides merchandise: all the wood and computers, shelving, display cases, plumbing, most of the floor tile, everything down to the cash registers—virtually everything that goes in the store besides the merchandise.” Pier 1 also has a central supply group to serve its nearly 1,100 store managers. But rather than deal with the huge task of maintaining lighting inventory for that many stores—whose equipment needs vary due to transitions over the years in how stores were set up—Tyson simply refers managers to CED National’s Don Russell. “He knows exactly what to send them. They just take care of things.” On the rare occasion that the box rattles upon arrival, the store manager calls Russell. “We have never ever one time had a single complaint from any of our stores about the quality, the time it takes to get their orders, mistakes or whatever,” says Tyson. “These guys do a super job.”

In addition to providing replacement lamps for existing Pier 1 stores, CED National handles the lighting package for each new store. Most new stores are build-to-suit, with the builder working from Pier 1’s specs. It’s up to the builder’s lighting subcontractor to buy the package specified on the blueprints. “The package is a rather complex assembly of pieces and parts, track lighting for the most part plus a couple of custom lighting fixtures made in Dallas by KW-2,” according to Tyson. KW-2 makes the fixtures solely for Pier 1, and CED National is the exclusive distributor. When the subcontractor contacts CED National to purchase the two custom fixtures, “invariably CED National sells the whole lighting package to them,” Tyson says. “So they’re not only serving us with the bulbs but they’re serving all these contractors with these lighting packages.” CED National’s Spencer does a takeoff on the plans to identify everything that is required, and the complete package is shipped directly to the new location. “It’s very, very rare that anything is missing,” says Tyson. “All the little pieces and parts are there.”

“We take it for granted,” Tyson says. “That’s just the way business is with these guys.” He cites one example of Spencer’s outstanding attention to inventory maintenance. Pier 1 uses PAR 38 Sylvania halogen lamps; they have for years. When Sylvania moved production of the lamps from one plant to another, they had some difficulty on startup and ran short on the particular lamp Pier 1 needed. Don Russell worked with Sylvania closely to ensure they had enough inventory on hand to cover Pier 1’s needs during the transition. “We never saw a hiccup,” Tyson says. “In fact, we didn’t even know about it until after the fact. That’s the kind of service we get from them.”

Tyson says Russell’s weekly check-in has become a pleasant social call. “He comes in with the purpose of ‘what can I fix,’ and there’s never anything broken, so it’s become just a weekly visit. It’s just pleasant when you have somebody who does what they do so well.” In 2004, CED National named Pier 1 as one of its top ten customers. “We don’t do that kind of thing here,” Tyson says, “or we would be giving them an award every year.” He appreciates the creative, problem-eliminating approach Russell and CED National provide to Pier 1.

Mark Kiefer, Vice President of Construction for CiCi’s Pizza, also appreciates the no-hassles relationship his company has with CED National. CiCi’s is the fastest-growing pizza chain in the U.S., with over 500 existing locations in 26 states, and 91 new locations in the past year alone. CiCi’s has a standard prototype that is used as a starting point, but the architects do a different layout for each store. CED National is listed on the plans as CiCi’s preferred lighting supplier. The package for a new location includes about 30 two-by-four fluorescent lights, ten recessed can lights, and about 20 specialty pendant lights. CED National also sometimes provides the distribution panels and subpanels. With the national purchasing program CiCi’s has set up with CED National, Kiefer can be sure that each contractor gets exactly the right equipment. “We start with the initial design, negotiate pricing based on the light fixtures we want, and set up a program where they have the inventory so that when people need something yesterday it’s available. They’ve done a very good job serving us,” Kiefer says. “They always make it right in the end if we have any issues, and we very rarely have issues.”

CED National is currently working with Walt Carucci, Vice President of Development and Construction for Garden Fresh Restaurants, on a brand new prototype of Garden Fresh’s Sweet Tomatoes and Souplantation restaurants. “Stephanie is placing all my units, both lighting and switch gear,” says Carucci. “She’s a good person and does what she says. When we developed the new buildings, she’s the first one I thought of for lighting and switch gear.”

John Lundebrek, with nationwide general contractor Elder-Jones, Inc., chooses CED National for the lighting and electrical supply needs of some of the retail stores Elder-Jones builds. In addition to working with Elder-Jones on new locations of Pier 1 Imports, CED National has served Elder-Jones on its construction of Appleseeds (a women’s clothing store based in Massachusetts). Depending on the size of the store, a typical shipment might be six to ten pallets of product. Lundebrek works with Don Russell throughout the project, beginning with sending him the drawings to price out the whole package and ensure every needed lamp is accounted for. “They’ve been phenomenal,” Lundebrek says. “You say you need it tomorrow, you get it tomorrow. But you rarely need to say that because it’s always there.”