February 2006                  return to the newsletter contents page

SEDA Sets Strategic Plan for 2006

For more than 30 years, SEDA has been dedicated to promoting the safety equipment distributor’s role in bringing quality products and services to safety equipment users. The need for this voice is more important today than it was 30 years ago, but the nature of the safety equipment business and how channel partners do business with one another has changed dramatically.   

Membership in the organization has declined over the last ten years as the industry has gone through consolidation and economic difficulties and as members have become apathetic or failed to see the true value of SEDA membership. Increasing competition from MRO distributors selling safety and from retail outlets and big box stores selling safety products directly to end users have threatened safety equipment distributors and diminished the value of the safety specialist. In order to meet the needs of our current and future membership, we must change what we are and provide increased value to our members.

The SEDA Board of Directors met to map out the future of the association at a strategic planning session held in Orlando, Florida last month. The SEDA Board approved a revised plan that better fulfills SEDA’s new mission statement and upholds the association’s core values. In recognition of these changing market forces, and the concurrent decline in SEDA’s membership, the Board believes this new mission statement clearly defines the direction the association must take in order to remain a vital force in the industry.  

SEDA’s new mission statement is to enable the success, vitality and long-term importance of safety specialists. This will be achieved through innovative and best-practice based educational, product, regulatory and supply chain learning programs that are developed and delivered through professional and networking forums with key channel partners.

We will be surveying SEDA members and asking for input over the next few months on our new direction and initiatives for the future.  We need to hear from you and value your feedback.  Our short-term and long-term goals for the association will evolve based upon your feedback.  Our goal is to make SEDA a vibrant organization that is focused on the needs of safety specialist firms.  We must change as an organization if we are going to provide the necessary value to our membership.

Our key initiatives involve changes in how we provide our members with networking opportunities, our delivery of educational programs, our assistance to members with pertinent industry benchmarking, and most importantly defining membership.  We will be sending you electronic surveys on each of these key initiatives over the next few months.  If you think someone else in your organization should participate in the survey, please forward it on to that person.  We will prepare a final report on SEDA’s new strategic plan as a result of these surveys and plan to unveil it at the annual Safety Week meeting in June at the Chateau Elan Winery & Resort in Braselton, Georgia.

Thank you in advance for your help. We need your input to be successful.