Building Zone Industries

and not just as a vendor or someone that isn’t significant. We feel that they’re part of our team and having suppliers that are willing to go the distance with you, to explore options, to sometimes do something that’s a little more customized for our demand, is extremely important.” Two of BZI’s most important supplier partners are the Nucor Corporation, the country’s largest steel producer, and Hilti, a supplier of steel fastening solutions. “Nucor is a big supplier that touches many different product types that we work with and they’ve been a fantastic partner, working through engineering reviews and elements. They’ve made what we do very possible. Without a partner like that, it would be very difficult; they came in early in our relationship and demonstrated a willingness to go the distance with us and it’s been a great fit. And we have a great partnership with Hilti over many years, as well.” MORE INNOVATION TO COME Going forward, Barlow says that he would like to see BZI continue to move from its traditional market segment, which was largely in the warehouse distribution space, and venture into more diversified areas, including food and beverage, retail, EV and battery manufacturing, data centers, microchip manufacturing, and E-commerce. “We’d like to be a quality partner to that client base; to build out our ‘core and shell’ offering where we can supply steel, put it in place, and clad the building out. There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity with these new product types and our goal is to be a player in that. We’d like to get into a position that through our innovation we actually shape how that rolls out in the future. That’s our aspiration.” opportunities for growth consistent. “Because we are innovative, a lot of times, we’re asking for something different or something more than the general industry is used to seeing,” he explains. “So, we’re operating outside of the status quo a lot. In order for us to deliver effectively, many times we have to build robust relationships with these supplier partners. And we think of them as partners PREFERRED VENDOR/PARTNER n Iron Depot www. Irondepot.com n InnovaTech www.Innova.tech n RailSync www. Railsync.io 10 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 12