Let’s start with two quotes from great thinkers from different and definitely not distribution backgrounds.      "A favorite theory of mine is that no occurrence is sole and solitary, but is merely a repetition of a thing which has happened before…"                  Mark Twain   “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”              Winston Churchill   There are no history books for those of us in the Knowledge-based distribution world.  While I consider myself to be a history buff, I am certainly not an official historian.  But, to quote the popular commercial, I did spend the night in a Holiday Inn Express.  Probably more than a thousand nights in various hotel rooms while earning a living in the distributor business.  So here is my attempt at writing history.  ...

The economy is expanding. Noting comments from economist Alan Beaulieu, of ITR Economics ( view more here ,) the 2017 economy looks like a great year for growth. The forecast calls for a bright, sunshiny sky with 3.7 percent growth. It’s been a mighty long time since we’ve enjoyed this type of up cycles. Now is the time for distributors to raise their prices. Join with me as I outline why and where to look for price increases. Why we’ve got low margins today… Downward pressure on margins is the universal distributor complaint. New competitors, supplier sales teams setting prices at unsustainable levels, the internet and customer pushback are all finding their way into the discussion. Further, in spite of some major productivity advancements, operating costs continue to rise. One distributor, who closely monitors operational costs, commented costs have risen nearly 25 percent faster than offsetting gross margin gains over the post-recession era. Clearly, we need to ...

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....