Blog
It’s easy to accept that the COVID-19 pandemic will result in a shift to customers embracing e-commerce, employees working at home and stronger distributors getting stronger. These predictions feel “right” now because they fit preconceived notions. They are outcomes long-predicted…
COVID-19: Distributors Work to Keep Pace with Demand
An immediate concern with the coronavirus is how to maintain product flow within the supply chain. Distributors share firsthand accounts about how the coronavirus is impacting their companies: “We’re trying to use it as an opportunity to pivot our services,…
Will Amazon’s One-Day Shipping Kill the Distribution Industry? by Andrew Horvath, Alexander Group
Amazon’s recent announcement that Prime members will receive complimentary one-day shipping benefits consumers who are too impatient to wait 48 hours for necessities like HDMI cables, laundry detergent or reissues of vinyl records. Amazon’s upgrade also benefits electrical contractors, facilities…
Webinar: MDM’s 2019 Mid-Year Economic Update
Join Modern Distribution Management for a web event on Thursday, July 11, 1-2 p.m. Eastern, that will provide you with a clear picture of how distribution end markets are shaping up for the second half of the year and into…
White Paper: The Future of AI in Distribution
Learn how leading companies are using artificial intelligence and the threats and opportunities these technologies pose for distributors. MDM’s latest white paper, sponsored by PROS, provides a plain-English description of what artificial intelligence (AI) is and what it means for…
Tagged with: AI, artificial intelligence, distribution, Ian Heller, Michael Wu
Posted in white papers
Posted in white papers
A Light that Still Burns Bright by Robin Watt at C.N. Robinson Lighting Supply Co.
In the past, manufacturers, through their reps, built relationships with distributors who had local market resources and were prepared to stock product and pay for it regardless of whether it sold or not. By doing so, the distributors assumed the…
Ted Konnerth on Lighting Disintermediation
A $2 word for cutting out the middle man. We’ve talked a lot about the changing channels throughout the electrical industry. Changes are not particularly new to the industry. In those way back years, electrical distributors sold appliances, Grainger created…
Lighting’s Inventory Puzzles by Doug Chandler
How electrical distributors are dealing with inventory in lighting’s new world of accelerated obsolescence. The wondrous changes brought by LED lighting technology over the past few years — the ability to offer your customers a product that provides better lighting…
Tagged with: distribution, Doug Chandler, EW, inventory stock, obsolescence
Posted in Featured Articles
Posted in Featured Articles
Lessons Learned from the Top 200 by Jim Lucy
Here are the five most important things I learned from this year’s Top 200 ranking. http://ewweb.com/top-200/top-200-2016s-largest-electrical-distributors 1. Distributor acquisitions are surging again in the electrical market. 2. The oil and gas blues have been a sad song for an awful…
2016 State of E-Commerce in Distribution
E-commerce in distribution continues to expand. In this whitepaper, sponsored by Unilog and produced by Modern Distribution Management, learn: • E-commerce as a percentage of distributor sales & expectations for growth • Distributor priorities for e-commerce • How distributors drive…
Tagged with: distribution, e-commerce, Modern Distribution Management, Unilog
Posted in white papers
Posted in white papers
Rethinking Lighting by Chris Brown & Bill Attardi
The End of Lighting as we Know it or Welcome to Lighting’s Innovation Era. Digital IoT control, continuing advances in the solid-state technology and new business models for installing and selling lighting are rewriting the rules of the lighting game.…
Big Threat or Big Opportunity by Gary Thomas
There are growing discussions in the electrical distribution community about the threat of select manufacturers and certain mega-Internet companies circumventing existing distribution channels by selling direct to end-users. It is referred to as “disintermediation”, and some fear that such a…
Tagged with: disintermediation, distribution, Gary Thomas, mega-internet, tED
Posted in Featured Articles
Posted in Featured Articles
AD Founder David Weisberg Passes Away at 89
David was an icon in the electrical industry, and worked tirelessly to support the partnership between manufacturer’s and independent distribution. He described his guiding principle in the formation of Affiliated Distributors as being to “promote a more productive partnership between…
Tagged with: AD, Bill Weisberg, David Weisberg, distribution, founder
Posted in Industry News, Uncategorized
Posted in Industry News, Uncategorized
Channels and Complexity By Ted Konnerth, Egret Consulting Group
There’s a lot of buzz about disintermediation lately and most of it is directed towards Lighting. And there is a very good reason why Lighting takes the brunt of it…. It’s the most complex electrical product vertical. I’ve often said…
Disintermediation Strategy: A Fact of Our New Lighting Life by Chris Brown
The recent discussions regarding disintermediation should be stirring conversation on how distribution deals with a fact of our new lighting life: Some manufacturers will choose to (or feel forced to) deal directly with our end users. Disintermediation is here, and…
SOME DISTRIBUTORS ARE ALREADY OUT OF BUSINESS, THEY JUST DON’T KNOW IT YET BY CHRIS BROWN, CEO, WIEDENBACH BROWN (@illumigeddon)
For all those who saw Captain Sunshine and my pictures in NAILD magazine, alongside our recent ‘debate’, no, I wasn’t in a boot because I injured my foot kicking Bill’s butt all over the internet, just recovering from achilles surgery.…
WELCOME TO THE INNOVATION ERA BY BILL ATTARDI
Let me share with you what we are teaching at graduate school these days…… from the 1980s until recently, we talked about being in the Consumer Era. That is, don’t make anything until you ask the consumer what they want…
Disintermediation and Amazon Business – Two Reasons for Distributors to Lose Sleep by Chris Brown, CEO Wiedenbach-Brown
@illumigeddon Solid State Lighting brings both threats and opportunities to electrical distribution. While not responsible for disintermediation, SSL may accelerate it. We know about LED startups and brand-recognizable new entrants to the U.S. lighting market, but what about established domestic…
Tagged with: Chris Brown, disintermediation, distribution, Illumigeddon, SSL
Posted in Featured Articles
Posted in Featured Articles
Can you spell … Disintermediated? by David Gordon
That was the subject line of an email received this morning from a distributor. The body of email had a link: http://creesolutions.com/Solutions/NoHassles Which started a thought process of: • Is this really disintermediation when there are a number of lighting…
CONNECTING THE DOTS CONTINUUUUUUES………… BY CHRIS BROWN
chris.brown@wblight.com So, now we finish listing the Dots we have identified. And as we should have said before, this is not intended to be a complete list, and everyone is invited to add their own dots. Not all the dots…
Tagged with: Chris Brown, connect dots, disintermediation, distribution, tech players
Posted in Blog
Posted in Blog
