Productivity Archives

Channel Strategies / Distributors / eBusiness / Growth Strategies / Marketing / Productivity / Research Reports

A Brick Branch or an eBranch – Let the Arms Race Begin

David Gordon Posted On December 4, 2013

As we mentioned Monday, a number of distributors, and some manufacturers, discussed e-marketing and more importantly e-commerce (commerce enabled websites) at the recent NAED Eastern Conference. It appears that the impetus for this has been the continued growth, and competitiveness, […]

Growth Strategies / Industry Consolidation / Logistics / Productivity / Technology

Epicor’s Red Flag warning

David Gordon Posted On November 25, 2013

For months ElectricalTrends has raised a red flag about the long term viability of Epicor’s products as many clients and friends have struggled to complete installs and gain or continue support. Recently Pemeco Consulting’s Jonathan Gross ( click his name […]

Branding / Channel Strategies / Contractors / Distributors / eBusiness / eMarketing / Growth Strategies / Lighting / Lighting2 / Marketing / Productivity / Purchasing / Research Reports / Technology

Amazon Supply and Google Shopping for Suppliers Programs …

David Gordon Posted On September 3, 2013

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had a number of conversations with manufacturers and distributors about “e” and inevitably the conversation comes around to Amazon Supply (AS) and Google’s Shopping for Suppliers (GSS) program.But first, a couple of things […]

Industry Consolidation / Industry News / Logistics / Productivity / Technology

Measuring your company going forward

David Gordon Posted On August 21, 2013

Changing Thought ProcessesDon’t let other programs in!ERP systems were sold to the masses of Distributors with all of the most common features and functions that a software company could put under one banner. In the early days of ERP software, […]

eBusiness / Marketing / Productivity / Research Reports / Technology

ERP’s won’t do it all in the Future … The Technologies for Today / Tomorrow

David Gordon Posted On July 24, 2013

The revolution has begun…look at it in your hand…it started out as a mobile phone. It is now a cell phone that exchanges data from different platforms and allows you to make decisions while on the move.From years back, distributors […]

Productivity / Technology

Mothership ERP revisited

David Gordon Posted On July 21, 2013

July 10th 2011 revisitedIn a posting titled “Is your ERP software system a Mother-ship” or a satellite software drifting into outer space, I suggested that there would be a number of software systems that had been ‘rolled up’ and would […]

Industry Consolidation / Productivity / Profitability / Technology

Epicor’s high yield bonds means?

David Gordon Posted On June 18, 2013

Support Fees for your ERPThere is one thing that most electrical distributors will gladly complain about and that is the support fees that they pay to a software company like Epicor , Infor, SAP and others. Some distributors question what these […]

Pricing / Productivity / Profitability / Technology

Rebates and Chargebacks = Making More $

David Gordon Posted On March 17, 2013

Everyone wants to make more money. After all, distribution is a “pennies, and maybe nickels” business. And when someone is willing to share how they’ve succeeded in pushing the needle forward, it can pay to listen (even if sometimes there […]

Advocacy / Associations / Productivity / Supplier / Products / Technology

We Buy From China, They “Source” Us?

David Gordon Posted On February 20, 2013

Every once in a while we receive information, insights and information from our ElectricalTrends readers that is worthy of sharing with our readership. We promise anonymity, however, ensure that the information is sourced vs. “grapevine” topics.Today we received the attached […]

Associations / Distributors / eBusiness / Marketing / Marketing Groups / Productivity / Technology

The Beginning of the Crumbling of a Monopoly?

David Gordon Posted On October 21, 2012

Recently I was flipping through the October issue of ElectroIndustry, NEMA’s publication, and saw this ad for IDEA recognizing their Platinum manufacturers. While this is a recognition program, it recognizes these 28 manufacturers for the quality of their data in […]