Applied Industrial Technologies hopes to grow revenue 40% to $4.5 billion in the coming years, and M&A will not surprisingly play a huge role in that ambitious pursuit. Here’s what company leaders said about their acquisition strategy moving forward.
Five questions to ask yourself that will help measure the effectiveness of your e-commerce capabilities.
After Grainger posted a moderate improvement in the third quarter, company executives dished on the distributor’s approach to acquiring new customers and how it is bolstering the company. Here's what they shared.
A strong individual online presence can mean good things for your distribution company.
After being acquired by a private equity firm and combined with Construction Supply Group, White Cap is now a $4 billion building materials distribution juggernaut. Where will the company rank among MDM's Market Leaders?
U.S. manufacturers are digitizing at twice the rate of other businesses, Alibaba.com survey finds.
How the online juggernaut uses AI-backed search expertise to improve its e-commerce effectiveness and overcome competitors.
There are popular rules that can almost always be broken, while others deserve some skepticism or flexibility, says consultant Robert Sabath.
Analytics tools not only help distributors become more agile, but in this time of increasingly complex supply chains, they can also alleviate stock-outs — and ease customers’ minds. But don’t forget the key components of building this capability.
Despite just 2.5% sales growth in the third quarter, Fastenal is poised to take market share in industrial distribution, according to one analyst. See what the distributor has working in its favor.
Amazon’s success is not an accident. It is the result of imaginative planning, technological enablement and top-notch execution — that distributors can emulate.
We have the opportunity to question the efficiency and effectiveness of our daily routines now like never before.
Where did distributor revenues land in the third quarter? What’s the outlook for 4Q and beyond? We answer those questions and more in this preview of the latest MDM-Baird Distribution Survey — and the results might surprise you.
Sales volume differentiation, individual sales target assignment and adjustment of measurement and pay periods are all critical in the effort to properly align pay in today’s environment, says consultant Andrew Horvath.
John Caplan, the president of North America and Europe for Alibaba.com., says that digital trade shows are one virtual event that could be here to stay even when we’ve moved past the COVID-19 crisis.
Indian River Consulting Group’s Mike Marks argues that sales transformation cannot happen for a distributor without releasing these long-held beliefs.
The news of out the White House that President Trump tested positive for COVID-19 — on the first day of the fourth quarter, no less — rattled the market and served as a potential blow to the rebounding economy. What else is in store for the last three months of 2020?
Another month of the U.S. economy muddling through the COVID-19 crisis, another period of distribution M&A showing signs of returning to normal, beginning with a big announcement from Lawson Products.
MDM’s most-read blogs of September 2020 center around capitalizing on ways to enhance your distribution business.
After pausing M&A activity back in March due to COVID-19, Ferguson says it has some deals in the pipeline, so it’s only a matter of time before the distributor again starts growing through acquisition.
