The Distributor Channel

It’s happening again:  Big Manufacturers Tightening Up their Supply Chain Over the past several years Mega-Manufacturers have settled on a strategy to sustain profitability in a slow growth economy: Tighten up their supply chain.  To the unaware, this sounds like a solid strategy.  Improving the flow of goods, creating more symbiotic relationships with those providing services, eliminating waste, streamlining, re-engineering and a tassel of other business buzz words, all resonate with Wall Street types.  Distributors have been through this a couple of times before, but unfortunately a good many sales managers have forgotten the lessons.  Many of our Millennial-generation sellers were still in school.  But, this is another page from the playbook of previous recessions.  Recalling the pain of the mid-90s, 2001-2002 and the Great Recession, allow me to review. Our largest customers jauntily inform us they “love” doing business with us.  They want to formalize our partnersh