Electrical Business

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Standard Products • A 2016 Best Managed Company (Platinum)

May 27, 2016 | By Anthony Capkun


David Nathaniel, president & CEO. Photo courtesy Standard Products.

May 27, 2016 – “To me, it’s the pride of knowing we have built a first-class organization that is able to evolve and provide value whatever the circumstances,” says president & CEO David Nathaniel of Standard Products on making the Best Managed Platinum Club. “It represents what we’re all about: a successful and dynamic business that is fully vested in working toward being best-in-class in everything we do.”

Best Managed companies embrace innovation, seize opportunities and inspire talent. EBMag reached out to all of the electrical industry players* who made the grade, hoping to learn a little more about what it is they are doing right, and why the distinction of being a Best Managed company matters to them and, truly, should matter to us all.

To read the full article with all the Best Managed electrical companies, check out the Spring 2016 edition of Distribution & Supply. Meantime, back to Standard Products, a Best Managed Platinum Club member.

In 1961, Haskel Nathaniel founded Standard Products Inc. as a toy import company. In the mid-1970s, he sold a variety of products from his home, the bulk of which he kept in a public warehouse. The items included batteries, cutlery, safety gloves and playing cards. Among the bric-a-brac was just one electrical product: insulating tape.

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When he joined the company in 1982, David Nathaniel eliminated all product lines expect for the electrical tape. A year later, the company entered the light bulb business. By 2000, it began the transition to becoming a full-fledged manufacturer of complete lighting solutions by assuming control of the design, performance and quality of its products.

“Most businesses are challenged today. Standard Products is no exception, given the disruption to our traditional lamp and ballast business by the technological shift to LED,” David notes. The company realized there were going to be significant changes, so “we thought hard about what the future was going to look like, and what we needed to do to be successful”.

Part of that included strategies for bringing value to its distributors and the supply chain but, says David, “perhaps the biggest reason for our success is the work we have done internally to strengthen our organization”.

“This includes leadership development, talent management, collaboration across the company, training and dynamic communication. We also hired a director of continuous improvement to strengthen our processes, and launched a Value Generation initiative that looks at ways to maintain or improve on what we do,” David adds.

What’s great about the Best Managed distinction, says David, is “it reaffirms that we are a winning organization, which is very important because everyone—including existing and prospective customers, employees and vendors—want to align with a winner.”


FYI… Best Managed awards are granted on five levels

1. Best Managed: One of the new winners selected each year.

2. Requalified member. Repeat winners retain the Best Managed designation for two additional years, subject to annual operational and financial review.

3. Gold Standard winner. After three consecutive years of maintaining their Best Managed status, these winners have demonstrated their commitment to the program and successfully reapplied for the designation.

4. Gold Requalified member. Gold Standard winners may requalify for two additional years, subject to annual operational and financial review.

5. Platinum Club member. Winners that maintain Best Managed status for a minimum of six consecutive years.

* For the purposes of D&S specifically, we only highlighted electrical manufacturers and distributors operating in Canada.


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