D.NEXT, Project TALENT and VITALITY Approved by ASA

Press Release Summary:

Original Press Release:

ASA Leadership Approves Launch of D.NEXT, Project TALENT & VITALITY

Itasca, IL – August 8, 2019 For more than a decade, ASA has steadily expanded the value of the national association through creating a vision of success and allocating resources to move ASA and its members toward an envisioned future. The result has been a steady introduction of programs and services that support the association’s members’ success. In 2018, the leadership of ASA began focusing its attention toward thinking about the challenges facing association members that were too big for any one member to confront alone and identified solutions to help members win the future. The leadership expanded its thinking about how ASA members and the industry as a whole would be challenged and disrupted. To provide clarity and a vision about what was coming, ASA engaged three Issue Strategic Action Teams (ISATs) to think deep about solutions to the three biggest issues facing the industry over the next ten years. These three ISATs met throughout 2018 and early 2019. At the 2019 Winter Leadership Meeting held in Dana Point, CA, nearly one hundred association volunteers heard reports from all three ISATs on how ASA could address these issues and support ASA membership. The three questions that these teams addressed were:

1. What would it take to recruit, over the next decade, 60,000 to 100,000 employees with the needed competencies to ensure leadership succession and a pipeline of qualified candidates to fill jobs, as anticipated workforce retirements threaten to gut the industry?
2. What can ASA do to spur growth-oriented members to transform their companies strategically and successfully, using technology? 
3. What can ASA do to raise members’ awareness about their positioning for the future and what tools/resources can ASA provide that will yield a viable, relevant future for members? 

The ASA Board and leadership has approved moving forward to develop creative and comprehensive solutions that will enable members to win in the future. The three visionary solutions presented and approved are: D.NEXT, Project TALENT and VITALITY.

D.NEXT will provide comprehensive resources, enabling ASA members to invest in technologies that deliver customer-valued solutions. Through this new program, members will develop the mindset, clarity and strategies to transform their businesses profitably. Central to the D.NEXT platform is the new ASA Innovation Lab that will open at Research Park in partnership with the University of Illinois. The Innovation Lab will be a hub of industry, supplier, distributor and technology company alliances that fund prioritized digital innovations, available exclusively to ASA members. ASA members will have unprecedented access to technologists, data scientists, engineers and others focused on viable technology solutions for business. Additionally, ASA will collaborate with University of Illinois faculty and students to develop industryleading digital capabilities that strengthen our members’ supply-chain positions. The D.NEXT platform of services will provide ASA members with needed resources to guide them along their technology transformation journeys.

Project TALENT was introduced as a significant long-term solution to provide members with the talent capable of driving success. Project TALENT encompasses a threefold effort that includes crafting an industry narrative that resonates with potential hires, helping ASA member companies prepare their organizations to effectively attract, recruit, and retain the needed labor force, and orchestrating local and national outreach efforts that drive awareness about long-term career opportunities. The ASA Board approved the first steps to explore launching a national campaign that will have both short-term success as longer image-building and outreach efforts are created, tested and deployed. 

VITALITY will support ASA members’ ability to act strategically in today’s rapidly changing business environment. Looking critically at their business, culture and strategic direction beyond today, is imperative to the future success and competitive ability of ASA members. VITALITY and the suite of tools that will be developed will allow business leaders to address the urgent needs of preparing their businesses for success in today’s dynamic market. VITALITY will support a business leader’s ability to assess the state of their business, set meaningful goals and strategic plans for the future, and enhance their ability to execute that plan to meet their goals, by using research based tools and best-practice platforms for growth, profitability, and long-term sustainability. VITALITY is being created for all ASA members including small local businesses, regional players, and national enterprises. 

“The issues and disruption that companies in our industry face are daunting. In response, the solutions that our leadership have approved are extremely big and bold. I am confident our members and other industry stakeholders will step forward and help to fund these critical initiatives, positioning our industry for a successful future.” said ASA CEO Mike Adelizzi. 

D.NEXT, Project TALENT and VITALITY are big, bold, long term solutions to our industry’s three most pressing concerns and will require commitment to raise the resources to sustain these efforts over the long haul. ASA has established a Future Fund to raise the resources that will be required to truly solve the labor and technology problems the industry will face over the next few years. 

For more information about ASA’s Building One Future effort and this initiative, contact Mike Adelizzi at madelizzi@asa.net.

EDITORIAL CONTACT:

Amanda Belknap

VP. Marketing & Communications

American Supply Association

630.467.0000, ext. 203 | news@asa.net