Wholesale distribution mergers and acquisitions continued at a brisk pace as the calendar rolled over to 2021.
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“Disappointing” was how one analyst described the industrial distributor’s gross margin performance (down 290bps) in the period, but such a plunge was all too familiar for many companies in these pandemic-plagued times.
“Make sure you're making acquisitions — now,” Alan Beaulieu told distributors at last week’s NAW Digital Summit. See why he says companies have the green light to grow.
“Companies don’t transform, leaders do,” said Peter Sheahan in his keynote to kick off NAW’s Digital Summit. We recap his playbook for how distribution execs can drive transformation within themselves — and their businesses.
Trying to shoehorn the needed supply chain structure into the current fragmented system is the root cause of the existing problem, say supply chain and analytics experts Jonathan Byrnes and John Wass.
During MDM’s Distribution Industry Outlook webcast, Baird analyst Dave Manthey outlined how economic momentum will pick up in the new year but especially in later quarters.
Employee education is a retention tool that leads to internal advancement and provides a direct benefit for the distributors who invest in it, says Texas A&M's Kourtney Gruner.
Distributors, manufacturers and industry representatives alike are pinning their expectations for the year primarily on the speed of the vaccine rollout. With that in mind, they are largely bullish on the second half of the year.
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.
On January’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Fastenal CEO Dan Florness and CFO Holden Lewis pulled back the curtain on how they view the company’s diminishing role of physical branches.
Understand the market, get to know your customers and use appropriate benchmarks in creating a portfolio management approach to customer retention.
Portfolio reviews are more valued by core customers with greater breadth of spending across categories. These are exactly the clients you want to nurture (and conversely, can’t afford to lose).
MDM offers a preview of how distributors fared in the last quarter of 2020, along with a roundup of the latest economic reports showing that the recovery is happening, just slowly.
Pricing strategy can take a hit when your sales team is desperate to get the sales funnel moving with orders and return to a sense of normal.
The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors plans to hold a highly interactive event, according to president and CEO Eric Hoplin.
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.
Distributors know we are not out of the woods yet, and they are planning accordingly.
Four ways that investing in technology now can help your distribution business emerge from the recession stronger than before.
Develop a strategic plan that allows you to be intentional in your actions through introspection, idea generation, execution and ongoing evaluation, according to Channel Marketing Group's David Gordon.
The final month of a tumultuous year brought a flurry of activity to wholesale distribution with 34 deals reported in MDM. Our M&A Roundup has the details you need.
