Are Distributors Prepared for the Future of Lighting?

There was an interesting article in last week’s US Lighting Trends, a joint service of Channel Marketing Group and Kerrwil Publication regarding the future of lighting.

Linda Longo of US Lighting Trends interviewed Mark Lien. Mark has more accreditations behind his name than I’ve seen in awhile. He has credentials from LC, CLEP, CLMC, HBDP, LEED AP and he has managed the educational centers for Hubbell Lighting and Cooper Lighting. Recently he also received the IES Presidential Award for Member Excellence.

Bottom line … Mark knows the lighting industry.

The core of what the interview about is “trends in technology that will impact the lighting industry. Linda asked him what distributors need to know in order to stay competitive and aware of emerging trends affecting their channel. And, by inference, if distributors need to know about it, then manufacturer reps / lighting agents need to know about it and presumably this is what leading manufacturers are working on or will be working on to be responsive to the lighting design community.

Some of the things he spoke about include:

• The role of AI in lighting, especially the usage of DALI for image generation. He mentioned a colleague who is using AI to create sustainable architecture (i.e., living buildings). He also talked about the role of AI as a sales tool (and to learn more about this, don’t forget to register for our webinar with Microsoft where we’ll talk about ChatGPT, AI and more.
• Changing energy metrics
• Opportunities, and the future, of 3-D printing

And a hint regarding the measurement of energy, and lighting, especially given that so much of lighting has already converted to LED … its about decarbonization.

Which then begs questions of:

• What do your salespeople know about carbon / decarbonization?
• How will the impact be measured?
• What information will manufacturers need to put on their products?
• What types of calculators need to be developed?
• What questions will distributor / manufacturer agents need to ask?
• How will the information need to be presented to contractors to get them to integrate it into the buying process … or will this enable specs to become “hard” once again?
• Who will train today’s sales organizations?

Some, from an older generation, may remember the phrase, “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.” For those who don’t, here’s the link to a commercial. It related to financial advice.

With Mark Lien’s experience in the electrical industry, when Mark talks, smart people in the lighting industry listen.

Check out the article on US Lighting Trends titled “How Prepared Are Distributors for the Future (of Lighting.)”