“What’s in it for me?” Over the years we all ask that question, especially when it comes to making decisions about our ERP software systems. Since most ERP’s at the order entry stage essentially perform the same function, we started […]
You say or mention Microsoft around just about every distributor and their employees and they respond “Excel” almost in unison. Some will say ‘Outlook’, ‘Power Point’ or ‘Access’. Very few will say AX (The ERP software) or AX Dynamics. Your kids […]
Over the past couple of months we’ve been talking about growth, be it from demand creation or demand fulfillment. We’ve written an article on it for Industrial Supply, one for the Canadian Electrical Wholesaler and a couple here on ElectricalTrends […]
Today we’ve got a guest blogger talking about how small / niche manufacturers can succeed. It can be a hard road, but one that with some perseverance can be very important to a distributor (in serving their customer) and obviously […]
Virtually all want to grow their company’s profitability. Whether it is a manufacturer, manufactures rep or distributor or the distributor’s customer. In fact I haven’t found anyone that wants the status.But, in today’s market here are two different worlds for […]
Almost thirteen years ago I started out on a joint project for IDEA to prove the value of synchronizing product data between the manufacturer and their distributors. The assumption, which was proven correct, was that the electronic flow of matching […]
As a note from Allen Ray: This is a Duplicate Post from 1-22-2015 due to some technical difficulties. All comments previously submitted have been re-created. It tis the New Year of 2015 and most distributors have successfully handed over demand creation […]
This posting is adapted from a recent article in Channel Marketing Group‘s newsletter. The thoughts in italics are added commentary. “As we close out the year we thought we’d share observations from conversations we’ve had with manufacturers and distributors recently. […]
The other day I was writing a customer satisfaction report we had just conducted for a client. The report asks customers what is important to them and how the client performs on each of the attributes. It covers all aspects of […]
Earlier this month both Border States and Reynolds Electric launched new online sites with robust eCommerce systems. While neither is currently a national distributor, their size, financial resources, access to capital (financial and human) and, in the size of Border States […]
