Companies working together often achieve far more than they can separately.  This is certainly true for Canada Metal (Pacific) Ltd. and SI-TEX Marine Electronics, who shared their specialties and strengths to launch a winning autopilot package.  By further collaborating on marketing materials, customer development and sales support, Canada Metal (Pacific) Ltd. has doubled its sales to SI-TEX this year.

As SI-TEX was introducing its newest SP110 autopilot, Canada Metal (Pacific) Ltd. worked with them to supply its unique Octopus Products drive unit.  It mounts behind the dash to replace the manual steering helm for cable-steered boats.  It turned out that the new SI-TEX autopilot also complemented a range of smaller Octopus drives with varied applications.  To help educate autopilot dealers and customers about the compatible drives, Octopus personnel first created co-branded brochures for SI-TEX.

The comprehensive literature outlined everything required for the installation of various Octopus drive units with SI-TEX SP110 autopilots.  This enabled a more efficient education process for dealers, as they could quickly specify the needed Octopus drive for customers, without hands-on training.  The brochures also served as good direct marketing tools, sent to sales leads in targeted territories with applicable boat demographics.

Since then, the companies have teamed up on co-branded regional advertising, jointly serviced customer leads, and shared market data.  They have even begun to use the same independent sales reps in specific territories to forge a stronger link with mutual customers.  The effort is now paying off with sales increases.

"The Great Lakes region is a good snapshot of how the collaboration benefitted everyone.  That market is geographically large, with major builders and dealers spread out, so working with SI-TEX created economies of scale in servicing customers," said Tim Bell, sales and marketing manager for Octopus Products.  "We are both 'market oriented' companies who share a philosophy that understanding the customer's needs and providing knowledgeable customer service is just as important as the products you sell."

Allen Schneider, vice president of sales for SI-TEX, agrees that the pairing of these two companies has been good for business — and boaters.  "By combining our autopilot expertise and product lines, we've helped meet a growing demand for affordable, reliable systems covering a wide range of power and sailboat applications," he said.

For information contact Canada Metal (Pacific) Ltd, www.canmet.com.