It’s Thursday afternoon, I’m on the beach in Florida with my friends, and I’m energized.   Let me share… I just finished spending the afternoon with attendees of the Association of High Technology Distribution spring meeting where the topic of the day was driving more value from your ERP system.  But let me digress for a moment… During the course of the last couple of downturns, analytics have gone from the growth tool of a few progressive distributors with a technology bent, to a “must have” instrument for longer range survival. To be clear on this survival thing; I’m not saying lack of analytics will put you out of business today, next year or even over the next five, but I do believe companies with analytics are getting more sales during this year’s downturn.  They are also capturing customer “wallet share” today, which will grow when economic winds blow in a more favorable direction.  They are more productive in gross margin.  They are ...