This past Feb. 22-23, MDM hosted a Virtual M&A Summit, in which a roster of seasoned dealmaking executives shared their insights into how to make business transactions go smoothly. It ended with an all-encompassing panel session I moderated in which BlackHawk Industrial President & CEO John Mark, Singer Industrial (formerly SBP Holdings) President & CEO Craig Osborne and Supply Chain Equity Partners Co-Founder and Partner Jay Greyson shared key lessons they’ve learned over the years and how the M&A market has changed post-2020. 

The trio of executives did a great job incorporating lessons shared throughout the summit, and I packaged them into a three-part series of Premium articles: One on March 8 focused on build-buy-invest tactics; one on March 20 focused on honest communication; and one on March 27 focused on valuation factors of emotion, risk and retirement.

We began the month with my March 1 piece recapping pricing and profitability factors shared in a NAW Executive Summit session; and Associate Editor Brad Star followed that by analyzing the interesting results of our social media poll asking if a four-day workweek could work in distribution. 

Read more in MDM’s March 2023 issue of Premium Monthly.

Elsewhere in March, I examined the latest wholesale data from the U.S. Census Bureau; Intuilize’s Nelson Valderrama discussed how CFOs can navigate inflation; and Associate Editor Mark Powell took a deep dive on Distribution Solutions Group a year after the distributor’s formation via the merger of Lawson Products, TestEquity and Gexpro Services.

After a couple of relatively quiet months on the events calendar, I’m looking forward to attending several this spring, including the Industrial Supply Association’s ISA23 April 17-19 in Phoenix, and the National Association for Hose & Accessories Distribution (NAHAD)’s annual convention held April 29-May 3 in the Bahamas. If you plan to attend either of them, I’d be happy to chat while there. Further out, MDM is hosting a free, one-day virtual Profitability Summit on July 19. We are assembling a cast of great experts pricing and profitability best practices that you won’t want to miss. You can find a registration page and more details under out “Events” tab.

And a bit further out still is MDM’s second annual SHIFT | The Future of Distribution in-person summit on Sept. 18-20 in downtown Denver. We’re putting together a who’s-who of distributor executives and subject matter experts in the areas of digital transformation, data analytics, hybrid sales who can deliver the change management best practices today’s leading companies need. We’d love to see you there.

Click here to download and read the March 2023 issue of MDM’s Premium Monthly.