If you’re only looking at enhancing the linear model that got you here, you may not be looking deep enough at core cost structures and exposures today. Or the ways you could make digital a deeper core competency.
Tom Gale
Tom Gale has been an MDM researcher and industry analyst for 30+ years on independent distribution channel trends, consolidation, technology and competitive landscape. He is a frequent speaker and moderator on these topics at company, marketing group and association meetings in North America and Europe.
Posts By Tom Gale
Shake up or break up: Tough truths on digital transformation.
Long-term focus includes talent, culture and transformation.
Challenge your thinking and embrace new ideas to rethink your company’s path forward.
Challenge your thinking and embrace new ideas to rethink your company’s path forward.
Our latest podcast guest was longtime M&A adviser Brent Grover, who outlined how distribution M&A markets are shaping up in 2021. Our recap includes Grover’s view on the current landscape and his timely advice for buyers and sellers that will help anyone become a better dealmaker.
We’re in a Twilight Zone between a pandemic-induced recession and a predicted strong recovery. This is the time to recalibrate and upgrade how customers experience your company’s value.
After a year defined by uncertainty, survival and pivots to find growth, 2021 is already accelerating (first understatement of the year). It won’t be comfortable.
Donnie Williamson joins MDM as Manager, Data Analytics, with a background at McNaughton-McKay Electric Company.
Tish Drake joins MDM as Senior Vice President, Publishing and Bob Jordan as Vice President, Business Development.
Consumer behavior is playing a role in speeding economic recovery.
In a time when optimism and clarity are hard to come by, Im moved by how the fundamental value of distribution is in the right place, at the right time. At one level its about moving product, but its much deeper than that distributors keep the economy running.
In a time when optimism and clarity are hard to come by, Im moved by how the fundamental value of distribution is in the right place, at the right time. At one level its about moving product, but its much deeper than that distributors keep the economy running.
In this second of our three-part conversation on innovation in distribution, J Schneider of strategy and consulting firm Dorn joins host Tom Gale to discuss what innovation looks like in 2020 for distributors and manufacturers. In this episode, we look at the ways smaller distributors often have an advantage to identify opportunities for innovation, the need to be selective in building manufacturer-distributor partnerships around a shared vision for innovation, and how to build a culture of innovation.
A major part of the equation that has built so many incredible ongoing success stories in distribution face-to-face communication and interaction has virtually overnight been removed from the table indefinitely. But the real strength has always been in the depth and quality of our personal relationships, writes MDMs Tom Gale. That won't change.
Customers continue to leverage digital and e-commerce tools to improve their buying processes. But for many distributors, their outside sales model isnt working as effectively as in the past to keep up with how customers want to buy. That growing gap is why a dedicated part of our research and coverage has been on the strategies, best practices and tactics for how to transform the sales process to reduce selling costs and increase efficiency and customer engagement. And its why the prize when it comes to increasing sales performance is on specific ways to become a more buyer-centric seller.
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While this privately held industrial supplier with more than 300 employees may not be a Harvard Business School case study in management structure, the three-brother leadership team has managed to buck the odds of many third-generation businesses by nurturing an entrepreneurial culture in an 85-year-old company. Listen to Doug Ruggles share whats worked to drive growth with a customer-centric solutions approach, with host Tom Gale.
