On Tuesday 25 February 2014 the Midwest Entrepreneurs class boarded two Monmouth College “turtle top” buses–piloted by your humble narrator and co-instructor Mike Connell–and headed north and east to the farming town of Alexis, IL (population 823). What we saw there was absolutely amazing.

I turn to student blogger Darnell McKissack to tell the story…

But please pay particular attention to his discussion of how what is viewed as a “goods manufacturing” company uses CUSTOMIZATION-BASED SERVICE to gain and sustain a distinct competitive advantage on a global scale. This is an issue I feature prominently in many of the classes I teach here. It would be hard to find a better example than this!!

Prof. Gabel

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Tuesday, the class took a field trip to the tiny town of Alexis, IL. There, we encountered and learned about a world-class, high-end, manufacturer of customized fire engines and other fire equipment; the Alexis Fire Equipment Company (http://www.alexisfire.com/).

We met with President Jeff Morris, who described himself as the “an SOB; the son of the boss.” While leading the class on a tour of the expansive facility, he began the story of his family’s business by describing how the company, founded in 1945, originally started by making general items such as wagons. However, one day in 1947, they were asked to make a fire truck. As Mr. Morris put it: “someone just asked us to make one.”

The company has since grown into one of but several high-end, completely customized fire engine producers with sales all around the world. Overall, the company competes in a really unique but highly competitive market of only about 300 fire engine manufacturers with around 2500-3500 units sold in the United States in any given year.

But the Alexis Fire Equipment Company–based exclsuviely in the tiny town of Alexis, IL–stands out on the basis of a distinct competitive advantage!!

The key to this company’s growth and ongoing success is customization and a focus on serving each customer’s specific and unique needs. Their sales team meets with clients on a daily basis early in the sales cycle. Maybe most importantly, they seek to create THE specifications for that particular customer. This gives them a competitive advantage because their competition has a hard time coming in and bidding on a truck that Alexis has already set the specifications for. These specifications deal with anything from which of the 600 different shades of “fire-engine red” paint will be used to having more water pressure, computer-programmable and remote-controllable sirens and emergency lights, and any of a wide variety of other accessory equipment.

One big but wise investment the company has made that helps them with this customization-based competitive advantage is a $300,000 water-pressurized cutting machine used to cut sheet metal and steel into whatever shape is needed. They can build fire trucks that sell for anywhere from $60,000 to $1 million. Maybe most impressive is that the company custom builds every part of the fire engines (outside of the core chassis and drivetrain, which is ordered from major trucking or auto companies per customer preference and need).

Mr. Morris told us in detail about several large sales to clients in Saudi Arabia, China, Mexico, and Canada. This is truly a global company in a very tiny town.

As Jeff Morris summed it up: “There is no dream or business too big for a small town like ours.”