As usual, the lighting market is active, so it must be time for our Q2 Pulse of Lighting update. Active? Consider: Acuity made two acquisitions this quarter that provide it greater technology resources – the Digital Signage business from ams […]
Grainger and Fastenal shared their Q1 earnings reports recently. Given that both focus on the MRO market and, from an industrial MRO viewpoint, are considered relatively comparable competitors, they can serve as a proxy for the MRO market, although electrical […]
The last week or so has been earnings week for many electrical companies where they shared their Q1 performance. As expected, all showed improvement versus last year (after all, the last two weeks were the beginning of the COVID shutdown). […]
Last month Christian Sokoll from DISC shared an electrical industry forecast that depicted accelerated growth for the industry. We all know about the price increases that are occurring in the industry let alone some of the “why’s” (supply and demand […]
Many talk about digitizing the channel and the emerging / present digitalization of the industry and then wonder why eCommerce as a percent of distributor sales is not higher. One major reason is for many distributors their key customer is […]
Have you noticed that with all the manufacturer and distributor mergers & acquisitions, that manufacturers representatives are following a similar strategy? For reference, since last August: There have been at least four major mergers of lighting agencies (most notably in […]
Contrary to reports coming from Washington, there is a war for talent going on in the electrical industry and it is going to get worse. Consider: If you track LinkedIn you’ll see that there have been many in the electrical […]
The first quarter saw a number of industry acquisitions and, while individually they highlight company growth initiatives, collectively they signal a trend that could be transformative for the industry … an industry divide driven by size. Yes, the big are […]
The first quarter of 2021 was an “interesting” challenge for those selling lighting and, at the end of the quarter, industry performance was projected to meet industry predictions made during the fourth quarter of 2020. Channel Marketing Group’s 2021 Q1 […]
Graybar reported that, at year end, sales ($7.3 billion) were only down 3.4% which, given the year, was “nothing”, especially since the industry was projected as down 10-12% by DISC and Rexel US reported down 7.7% in Q4 (and more […]
