People of a certain age may remember Sears, Roebuck & Co., famous for its huge catalogues chocked full of pictures of thousands of items. The hundreds of pages in these volumes containing those pictures were utilized by families shopping for necessities and equipment. For children, it was where you spent time looking at pictures of items you might never see in real life. It was also where Christmas wish lists were created. Why was the Sears catalogue so famous? It contained almost everything you needed to live and work – and whatever you bought arrived at your door courtesy of the Post Office. The catalogue also played an important role associated with outhouses.

For the businessman seeking instruments, tools or mechanical devices necessary for his enterprise, the catalogue provided knowledge of what existed. This was especially important for new and fledgling businesses. For people living in rural areas with limited to no opportunity to shop at stores, they depended on the catalogue. The Sears Roebuck catalogue followed on the success of Frank Woolworth and his Great Five Cent Store that offered a wide range of consumer items to families across the country. However, Woolworth’s success depended on being in populated areas where people could shop in person. The catalogue opened more possibilities for people everywhere.

Today, everyone is familiar with the success of Amazon with its unending inventory of products that can be purchased online and delivered to your home – even the next day! As we learned last year during the worst of the pandemic lockdowns, you could get virtually everything you needed to live delivered directly to your door. Amazon’s success sprang from books to all sorts of consumer goods and clothing, and now it is extending its business into food and medicines.

The industrial supply business continues to operate more like Woolworths than Sears Roebuck. The question is whether the supply business can morph into an Amazon-like business? Throughout the history of the energy industry, availability of critical supply items has always been key. When the industry expanded into virgin areas of exploration, the efforts were challenging and expensive because every service needed in exploring, drilling, and producing hydrocarbons required bringing everything you needed, including lots of spares, since there were no industrial supply stores nearby.

It is not surprising that in an era of low oil and gas prices and increasing pressure on energy companies to become more efficient, reduce costs and boost returns, management teams are reassessing every aspect of their operations.Securing what is needed to operate in the field cost effectively and quickly is imploring companies to find new ways of thinking about purchasing are needed.Is an Amazon-like offering for the energy and industrial industries the next step?

For this Company Spotlight, we interviewed GoExpedi’s CEO, Tim Neal, and SVP of Strategy, Anthony Thomas, about how the company is streamlining the procurement and distribution process for maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) products in the energy and industrial industries. GoExpedi provides over 200,000 critical parts and supplies with complete transparency on price, supplier choice and availability through its online e-commerce platform. The company's innovative supply chain model has created a business that delivers the right part, at the right time, overcoming a fundamental challenge for the industry.For more information on GoExpedi, please visit www.goexpedi.com.

Background: While working in the energy industry, Tim noted many similarities between the supply chain of MRO products, which wear out, run out or break, and that of consumer products as both were dominated by very large brick and mortar.…..READ MORE