We are well into January which means many of you have given up on your personal resolutions.  And maybe you gave up on your professional ones as well, but I have a feeling you didn't make any!   Wait, did I touch on a nerve there?  Never fear, I have some questions you can ask yourself to give you a jump on 2023.  Much like in 2022, we are still dealing with a "new normal" in a post-Pandemic world.  While some things in life are back to 2019 standards, many are not.  Some will never be the same and it's time we started seeing the good in that change...or at least try our best not to resist the changes.  I'm talking to those of you nearing retirement who thought you could just ride things out under the radar. But as your younger counterparts will tell you, adapting is critical to survival in the new year.  After all, buying eggs will set you back quite a bit these days! So here they are, Top 10 Distributor Questions that Demand Answers in 202...

This summer has been very hectic.   Lots of things happening around here both personally and professionally with River Heights Consulting.   Here are the cliff notes: Personally: My first major (25-30 mile) bike ride of the summer season during the Memorial Day Weekend resulted in a broken shoulder and a severely banged-up body.  I could barely type for three weeks but got to spend a lot of time talking on the phone.  The good news is the Doc says I am “good as new,” whatever that means.  Professionally: When you can’t type, talking on the phone is about the only possible business activity.  We interviewed over 50 distributors in the automation, electrical, fluid power, and related spaces.  Distributors love to share.  We have a very strong understanding of current market conditions, what is working, what is not, and the state of what seems like a global supply chain interruption.      NOW – The Six Things   Re...

 After the Pandemic – Working Remotely Supply-Partner Implications Earlier, we talked about the impact of distributors and their customers working remotely and how the changes impact distributors.  In the eyes of many, the story would end here.  However, a distributor is a middleman, the entity positioned between those consuming and those creating products.  Distributors are a critical part of what could officially be called the supply chain.   A bit about the supply chain  A supply chain is a network between a company and its suppliers to produce and distribute a specific product to the final buyer.  The companies providing raw materials to supply-partners are part of their supply chain.  The distributor and supply-partners are steps in our customer’s supply chain.   If the distributor’s supply-partner experiences delivery issues and the distributor cannot deliver, the customer’s supply chain is impacted.  If the distributor m...

After the Pandemic – Working Remotely First in a Series on Planning for the New Normal We have been thinking a lot about life after the Pandemic and the reality of the new normal.  One thing that keeps surfacing is working remotely.  For instance, a recent post by famed CRM provider Salesforce stated, “The 9-5 workday is dead.”  Office buildings will no longer house the thousands of workers once important to maintaining operations.  Salesforce categorized the future of their workers this way: ·          Flex : When it is safe to return to the office, employees around the globe will work flex. This means they will be in the office one to three days per week for team collaboration, customer meetings, and presentations. ·          Fully Remote : For employees who do not live near an office or have roles that don’t require an office, they will work remotely full-time. ·    ...