Operations is the lifeblood of a distributor as it delivers upon sales’ commitment of getting material to the customer. And at the end of the day, distribution, and customer satisfaction, is about getting the right material to the customer when […]
Last week WESCO and Grainger released their fourth quarter reports and shared some comments looking forward. As the two seem to be a barometer for the industrial market (overall, not always from a company performance side), we looked to see […]
The distribution equipment landscape seems to be continually shifting over the past year. For a product category that historically was core to the identity of a distributor to now one where some distributors are more willing to consider change. Consider […]
Recently I’ve spoken with a number of distributors who have shared that business is up and in some areas it is being driven by residential growth in their market. Frequently this growth is new home construction, however, sales performance at Home Depot […]
Acuity achieved a 10% organic sales growth last quarter while the Juno acquisition generated another 9%. Both become key metrics for distributors to benchmark themselves. Additionally, 66% of Acuity’s fixture business is now LEDs, another benchmark metric for distributors. Acuity’s […]
Happy New Year. And with a new year comes 2017 predictions. This year, at least at this time, there appears to be some economic optimism in the air. Whether it’s sustainable given that the economic and regulatory reforms that are […]
For some reason when it comes to December manufacturers seem to make a flurry of moves with a number being of the acquisitive type. Don’t know why, but… And there are other manufacturer “happenings” that we’ve heard of. So, as […]
Every year utilities spend billions of dollars on energy efficiency / lighting rebate programs. In fact, one report states $7.8 billion! And estimates are that only $1-3 billion of this are for mid-stream (channel) rebates. And as Chris Cloutier, our […]
2016 seems to have been the “year of pricing”. A number of distributors either discussed, or undertook, pricing initiatives this past year. In many instances it was a desire to reverse an industry trend … eroding margins. Others recognized that if […]
