What's going on in the world of distribution?
Pricing Increases
- Tariff Uncertainty
- Holding cash
- Spending differently
- Buffering inventories
Staffing Challenges
- Employee Recruitment
- Attracting talent to a "traditional business model"
- IT folks pushing back
- Distributors finding stop gaps (Managed IT, Software-as-a-Service
Customer Expectations
- Quick and easy access to information
- "Amazonification" of expectations
- Visibility, interconnectability, traceability, all in two days
- Sales Rep - Customer Model
Supply Chain Management
- Collaborative buying groups
- Operational inefficiencies
- Siloed Systems
Consolidation of Distribution
- Acquisitions
- Mergers