Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of a 4-part series previewing new research conducted by MDM, exploring how distributors can use strategic foresight to navigate disruption and prepare for multiple plausible futures. In Part 1, we explored the growing gap between confidence and capability in distribution strategy – and why traditional planning isn’t enough. In this installment, we share findings from our latest survey on how distributors perceive the major forces of change reshaping the industry. This research is generously sponsored by Infor. For deeper insights, join our free webcast discussion on June 25.

What does the future of distribution look like? That’s the question we’re exploring in this research series by developing a set of plausible future scenarios that could unfold between now and 2035.

In strategic foresight work, one of the first steps is to identify what we call “forces of change.” These are the social, technological, and economic shifts that are underway, reshaping customer behavior, operating models, and value creation. These forces act like raw material: they don’t tell us what will happen, but they help us map what could happen, and what we need to be ready for. That’s why we catalogued them.

In our forthcoming report, we’ll use these forces of change as the backbone of four future scenarios for the industry, each with distinct implications for growth, resilience, and competition.

To better understand how the industry is currently responding to these changes, we asked distributors to rank the relative impact of various trends across three domains: socio-environmental, technological, and economic.

In this blog post, we offer a high-level preview of what distributors told us about undercurrents they’re feeling. Our full report, which will be shared in our June 25 webcast sponsored by Infor, will explore these results in more detail — including a statistical analysis we conducted showing the gaps uncovered between urgency and preparedness.

Here are the headlines of what we heard – and why it matters:

1. Social & Environmental Shifts: Meeting the Moment, Missing the Long View

Distributors told us they are feeling direct pressure from shifts in buyer behavior and cost volatility. Two forces dominated the responses:

• Omni-Channel Distribution: Buyers now expect seamless integration between online and offline sales channels. Distributors are racing to modernize their go-to-market strategies in response.
• Cost and Price Volatility: Tariffs, geopolitical friction, and fluctuating input costs are creating persistent margin uncertainty.

A second tier of change is gaining ground:

• Hyper-Personalized Customer Experience: AI is enabling tailored buying journeys, but adoption across the industry remains uneven.
• Transparency and Ethical Sourcing: Customers are beginning to ask harder questions about where products come from — and how they’re made.

Lower on the list, but strategically important:

• Influencer Partnerships: A trend that feels more “retail” than “distribution,” but could quickly gain relevance as B2B buying becomes more socially informed.
• Climate Change Impacts: Despite clear effects on supply chains, sourcing, and insurance costs, many distributors view climate risk as a slow-burn issue — less immediate, and thus often deprioritized.

What we heard in the research:“We’re always watching what’s changing — but also what’s not changing. The challenge is knowing which one will matter more next year.”

2. Technology Shifts: Prioritizing Core Infrastructure, Delaying the Frontier

On the technology front, we heard a clear prioritization of “must-haves” over “nice-to-haves”:

• Predictive Analytics: Seen as a critical enabler for inventory management, forecasting, and smarter replenishment.
• Cybersecurity Threats: With ransomware and digital breaches on the rise, distributors are increasingly focused on securing digital infrastructure.

A second wave of tech-related change is rising but less consistently prioritized:

• Automation in Warehousing: From robotics to drones, distributors are selectively investing—but often constrained by cost or complexity.
• Online B2B Marketplaces: Platforms like Amazon Business are on the radar, but seen as either threat or opportunity depending on business model.
• AI Product Recommendations: Still emerging. For some, a powerful differentiator; for others, an unrealized capability.

What we heard in the research: “Distributors are adopting tech, but it’s uneven. And where we place bets often depends more on resourcing than strategy.”

3. Economic Shifts: Resilience and Relevance Under Pressure

Unsurprisingly, economic uncertainty is front and center. The highest-priority forces included:

• Volatile Supply Chains: The disruptions of the past few years haven’t gone away – if anything, they’ve become more frequent and less predictable.
• Rising Competition: From platforms to manufacturers bypassing distribution entirely, competitive pressure is shifting from familiar players to structural threats.
• Domestic Sourcing: As a hedge against tariffs and global instability, many distributors are reconsidering where and how they source.

Other forces lurk just below the surface:

• Fears of Stagflation: A potentially dangerous mix of inflation and stagnation continues to threaten the cost structure of the entire value chain.
• Focus on Last Mile: Not yet a top priority for most, but may soon become one as expectations for speed, transparency, and service reliability increase across B2B.

What we heard in the research: “It’s not just about operational efficiency anymore. It’s about protecting access, relationships, and margin in a value chain that’s being rewritten.”

Seeing the Whole Board

If there’s a single insight from this work so far, it’s this: distributors are paying attention — but their focus is skewed toward what feels immediate. Many are investing heavily in operational resilience and customer experience, while underestimating or postponing action on slower-burning but deeply disruptive trends.

And that’s understandable. The volatility we’re experiencing right now demands near-term execution. We do fear, though, that we’re missing the long-term forest for the short-term trees, which is what sparked this research project for us in the first place.

That’s what scenario thinking is for. It gives us a structured way to connect the dots between today’s signals and tomorrow’s implications – and to test whether our strategy holds up across more than one possible world.

Next Up: Four Plausible Futures for Distribution

In Part 3 of this series, we’ll introduce the four scenarios we developed based on this research. Each one represents a different combination of forces and a distinct operating environment. None of them is guaranteed, but all are plausible. And each one reveals something different about how distributors may need to adapt in the decade ahead.

Want the full report when it’s ready? Sign up here to get notified of our upcoming June 25 webcast and research release.

The Futures Thinking Series

• Part 1: 9 in 10 Distributors Say Their Business Strategy Won’t Hold Up. Why Futures Thinking is the Answer
• Part 3: Four Futures Every Distributor Should Be Prepared For
• Stay tuned for Part 4.