AWSCo serves both homeowners and homebuilders through its locations in Phoenix, Tucson, Scottsdale, Peoria and Gilbert, Ariz., and its 300 employees.

Arizona Wholesale Supply Co. (AWSCo) has managed to maintain its success since its inception in 1944 by constantly shifting its focus to the next hot market. "We are always branching into new stuff," says Tim Thomas, vice president of the specialty and electronics divisions.

AWSCo is a third-generation, family owned distributor of homebuilding supplies that has served the metropolitan areas of Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., for more than 62 years. Its products include floor coverings such as carpet, sheet vinyl, pre-finished hardwood, and ceramic tile and natural stone floors; ceramic and natural stone countertops; and appliances, blinds and shutters, garage coatings, water systems, central vacuums, closet systems and whirlpool tubs.

AWSCo serves both homeowners and homebuilders through its locations in Phoenix, Tucson, Scottsdale, Peoria and Gilbert, Ariz., and its 300 employees. "We serve production and custom builders, but we're also branching into the remodeling business," Thomas says. "We're handling more walk-in traffic. We don't advertise, per se, but we're refocusing our showrooms on remodeling and more builder-upgrade business."

A majority of AWSCo's $100 million annual revenues comes from its appliance business, with the Whirlpool brands making up most of that share. Thomas says the company works in Arizona primarily, but its mobile electronics division is garnering business in New Mexico and Nevada.

New Division
AWSCo's new consumer electronics division is an example of the company taking advantage of its relationships in the Arizona homebuilding industry, according to Thomas. The company has added plasma television to its product list for production homebuilders. "We're not going for real high-end home theater stuff," Thomas says. "We're just taking advantage of the relationships we do have and creating a channel we don't see is meeting builders' needs.

"It is fairly basic installation, and it is nothing too difficult with the components. The flatscreen TV becomes a builder opportunity." Thomas says most of AWSCo's forays into new product lines stem from its relationships with customers.

"We can only get so much market share in the appliance business," Thomas adds. "With the relationships and history we do have with builders in town, we sell as many products and services that they will allow. We do more than half of the top-50 builders in the market. Through growing our sales staff and expanding our relationships, it allows us to get into more luxury-oriented home markets. We touch a lot of different people in a lot of different areas."

AWSCo has flourished by continuously adding specialties to its product lines. Meanwhile, it has sold some divisions, including a light bulb business, a satellite dish division, a fireplace division and a Whirlpool service division, which Whirlpool bought for itself a number of years ago. These transactions were entered into for various reasons, according to Thomas, including changing market conditions, increased competition, implementation of new local legislation and shrinking margins.

"One of our former divisions is now twice as big as its own parent company," Thomas adds, speaking of QDI LLC, now a sister company of AWSCo. QDI is a national wireless master distributor and activations company.

Returning to Normalcy
Thomas says he is not surprised the housing market has cooled off. "I remember when there were only 10,000 starts in the market," he says. "When they are doing 65,000, how healthy is that? People couldn't afford to buy homes anymore. And, no one could get them built in an acceptable time frame on sales in the pipeline."

He adds that the return to a more realistic market has not affected business for AWSCo because his company is one of the last trades to enter a home. The company is still as busy as ever at the moment, but Thomas expects business to slow down in the first and second quarter of 2007.

That slowdown will mean not as many employees will be needed, according to Thomas. He says the company does not plan on making any cuts; instead, it will allow its work force to right-size through attrition.

Employee Empowerment
Thomas says AWSCo encourages its employees to continue to learn and grow. One of the ways the company helps this process is by sending employees to Rapport Leadership International, which is a leadership training program. Thomas says the company allows employees to find other means of external training and will help fund it.