Page 173 – Electrical Trends

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 […]

Branding / Distributors / Growth Strategies / Marketing

Driving … The Grainger Way

David Gordon Posted On August 26, 2013

Okay, so we talked about imitating others and how that may, or may not be, an effective growth strategy and yes, according to Nike, everyone wants to be “like Mike”, but here’s an idea from Grainger that may generate some […]

Industry Consolidation / Industry News / Logistics / Productivity / Technology

Measuring your company going forward

David Gordon Posted On August 21, 2013

Changing Thought Processes Don’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 […]

Branding / Growth Strategies / Lighting / Lighting2 / Marketing

Cree – Building Market Awareness Through Retail Merchandising

David Gordon Posted On August 20, 2013

We’ve all heard, and seen, how LEDs are taking over the lighting space. We’ve seen lighting manufacturer strategies … and they all focus around selling fixtures with LEDs in them. And we’ve heard how LEDs are so much more efficient […]

Distributors / Growth Strategies / Logistics

Is Imitating Others The Path to Your Success?

David Gordon Posted On August 8, 2013

It’s been said that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. And “sincerest” is usually referenced as highest or greatest, which is why others seek to emulate. Frequently in business, companies try to benchmark themselves to others and, if they […]

Growth Strategies / People in the News / Research Reports / Sales Channel

Are You Culturally Positioned to Grow? Attributes of Culturally Growth Oriented Companies (and those that aren’t)

David Gordon Posted On August 6, 2013

The other day I was reading Frank Hurtte’s blog posting entitled “The Death of a Distributor – The Wrong Kind of Culture” which coincidentally was similar to a discussion that Allen and I had last week. Recently we’ve spoken with […]

Contractors / Customer Segments / Industrial Market / Lighting / Lighting2 / Research Reports / Supplier / Products / Technology / Training

Electrical to Electronic … Information Needs, Training and Liability?

David Gordon Posted On August 1, 2013

Today’s article in The Wall Street Journal entitled “‘Smart Homes’ Are a Hacking Risk” gave thought to a number of potential opportunities, and implications, for electrical distributors. The article focused on ‘smart homes’ and how we’re becoming a more interconnected, […]

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, […]

Productivity / Technology

Mothership ERP revisited

David Gordon Posted On July 21, 2013

July 10th 2011 revisited In 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 […]

Channel Strategies / Industry Consolidation

ABB (or Thomas and Betts), Eaton and the Effectiveness of Manufacturer Consolidation on Distributors

David Gordon Posted On July 7, 2013

Last month we were with a group of distributors facilitating a discussion and the topic came around to supplier consolidation. As you could suspect, there was conversation regarding the two largest over the past 18 months or so … ABB […]