We recently wrote an article where we asked the question, “Who’s doing the work?” By sheer coincidence, the last few days I have received several calls from distributors complaining about supply-partners who practice “saturation” distribution. To define the saturation approach, allow an explanation. Some manufacturers believe customers have a natural desire to buy their product and to hedge their bets, they decided to sign up every company willing to place a stock order and, maybe, place their products into inventory. Some distributors even say things like, “Acme Anvil allows everybody with an oversized garage and a business card to be one of their authorized distributors.” While the situation may not be anything like the previous (distributor provided) description, it does present a bit of an issue for distributors who are actively selling the products. Let’s break distribution down into two basic categories and do a bit of comparison. Introducing the Logistics Distributo ...