As a company, Helm has survived for several generations through its ability to continually reinvent itself over the course of its more than 80 years of existence. The Plymouth, Michigan-based company founded by David Helm started as a commercial trade bindery in Detroit, Michigan before growing to provide global fulfillment services, as well as branding and apparel for corporate clients. Helm was also an early pioneer in the realm of e-commerce, as the company adopted the technology powering modern e-commerce for its ordering processing and inventory management systems in the 1990s. Today, Helm is known for its brand marketing services, engagement marketing services and retail network services– helping businesses stay connected across all of their operations.
Helm began dedicating a significant amount of its resources and manpower to retail network services in 2019, following a period of growth in which the company had doubled in size. In the previous year, Helm had been acquired by Banyan Technologies Group, which made the company a subsidiary of Banyan, giving it access to more resources and technology that could be used to expand the company’s reach across the globe. Helm has used these resources to build products and services such as field support, rewards and incentives, and business intelligence technologies.
In addition to these, the scope of Helm’s retail network services includes both personnel-based solutions for corporate clients, such as field force employment and sales, training, and aftersales support, and tech-based solutions such as advanced business intelligence and data analytics. Solutions for field operations include specialized recruiting, onboard and in-field training, and ongoing performance measurements. Its business intelligence offerings include descriptive and predictive analytics from data and a data ingestion engine that allows users to manage data from multiple feeds, including sales data, account info, and transactions. Helm also offers specialized franchise network support to brands branching out and adding more locations across the country.
Helm’s retail network services, perhaps the brand’s greatest strength lies in its ability to combine these solutions with its entire host of business solutions, including its brand marketing and engagement marketing services, alongside its fulfillment operations and supply chain services. This integrated approach not only enables Helm to be seen as far more than a service provider but rather as a connective layer across the entire retail ecosystem, with strategy, execution, and performance all being brought together under one operating model. By providing a link between manufacturers, their dealer networks and their customers, Helm is able to create a higher level of coordination between them, something that is difficult to achieve through fragmented vendor relationships. This ecosystem allows Helm to deliver all-encompassing end-to-end customer journey support that impacts their client’s bottom line.
For automotive manufacturers, this equates to greater visibility and control across thousands of independent dealer networks. Helm’s systems and services allow them to not only see how their operations are performing, but also to ensure that their dealer networks have all the tools and support required to execute effectively at the local level. This contributes to better alignment of operations while also reinforcing the strength of the overall customer experience across every interaction.
The ability of a company like Helm to bring together marketing initiatives with operational support provides a far smoother transition from strategy to execution, with these marketing efforts no longer being restricted purely to high-level planning but instead directly tied to all aspects of company activities, incentives, and outcomes.
Helm’s retail network services are, therefore, a further example of how the company continues to evolve its overall philosophy of being able to adapt and evolve with its clients’ needs, providing an important case study on how manufacturers and dealer networks work together, scale, and grow within an ever-complexing and competitive marketplace.
