Every conference has some session about AI. And every reception at every conference has someone asking about what you’re doing with AI. So, imagine being at a conference that is all about AI and where everyone is talking AI 24x7x3. […]
While national chains are reporting strong growth as they benefit from data centers and all in the industry seeing topline performance grow due to wire pricing, the challenge is that operating costs continue to rise for electrical distributors. So, the […]
Scott Sinning from MarginMax Partners has been sharing ideas to help electrical distributors improve their profitability this year with his articles on plugging leaks, using SPAs, and more. Now he’s offering a webinar on SPAs next week. The Cost of […]
Parspec continues to grow and launch new, innovative, tools Recently it was a sales management platform to support lighting agents and now it’s an AI-native project management platform developed with leading electrical distributors to help electrical distributors advance their businesses […]
According to DISC, the electrical distribution industry grew 4.2% last year. Sounds “good” in the sense that this would represent the historical midpoint of growth for the industry, however … consider the impact of data centers (we estimate it is […]
Lots of conversations regarding AI for distribution. Lots of application-specific initiatives, which is an approach. There are some more “comprehensive” systems, which is a different approach. What the right solution is is a company-specific conversation based upon goals, however, the […]
Channel friction inevitably occurs when money is involved. While the flow of money is always good, administering and reporting on it is where the friction comes about. This gets to the issue of “is the information accurate.” Achieving accuracy requires […]
An unfortunate trend within the electrical distribution market is that gross margins either stay flat or the have been eroded. Reasons range from chasing business to “it’s what the market bears.” From selling more commodities or a change in business […]
Customer service is one of the services that differentiate distributors. In fact, it is the most critical one as it is the essence of what is delivered to customers … and delivered by your people. Your branch managers are at […]
In the electrical distribution industry, we often talk about “backside dollars”, or rebates, as a necessary part of the business. But are they a strategic asset or just a “tax” on doing business? Last year we (Channel Marketing Group) conducted […]
