Last week’s NAED National Meeting brought the NAED senior leadership meeting season (regionals and national) to an end with the next meeting scheduled being the NAED Western next January. The remainder of the year is NAED’s “niche” meetings – Women […]
Acquisition activity this year has been very mild. After 117 deals being announced over in 3 ½ years, there were only three deals announced in Q1. But in the last week, another four electrical / lighting distributor deals were announced. […]
We’re seeing distributors continue to invest in software tools that streamline processes, increase capacity, and generate enhanced services … all in an effort to reduce costs and increase sales. John Gunderson and I were at the MDM SHIFT conference last […]
With many commenting that the lighting industry is “slow” and some companies undergoing retraction you may think that lighting innovation is declining, and the future may be dimming. Repeatedly you hear of value-engineering and the commoditization of the industry, especially […]
How do you motivate contractors to place orders via your website? Make eCommerce easy for them. Just like Amazon found the secret weapon to increase B2C eCommerce sales by closing the last mile so that, as consumers, we knew we […]
Over the past few weeks companies have been releasing their quarterly earnings, which enables a peak into performance and strategies and gives the opportunity to identify any trends. Kevin Coleman, formerly Director of Market Intelligence for Signify, supports Channel Marketing […]
Two representatives recently contacted me to solicit my input regarding contracts from two manufacturers on potential compensation changes that were being introduced. Over the years I have worked with manufacturers on their rep contracts and have found many to be […]
Recently I saw information promoted by a company called Mydatafactory as I saw their advertorial targeting the industrial distribution industry. It intrigued me as it spoke to how industrially-oriented companies could compete more effectively versus the large distributors. Essentially, this […]
The chart says it all. 80% of the customers who transact with you throughout the year are unassigned accounts. In a market where demand is softening from your core customers, could there be opportunities with others … and “others” also […]
While personal relationships are a differentiator for electrical distributors with most customers have a defined list of distributors they buy from, another tool that some distributors use to capture their “unfair share” of a customer’s wallet, are loyalty and incentive […]
