Lead photo: NetPlus Alliance’s staff pose for a group photo at the company’s 10th Annual Meeting, held Oct. 8-10 in Denver. (NetPlus photo)

MDM has long covered how the distribution sector remains comprised of a wide spectrum of businesses — both in terms of the markets they serve, and the demographics of these firms. Coupled with that is the different stages that these thousands of distributors are at in their journey in digital transformation, culture and talent incubation, customer service and beyond.

It was refreshing to discuss this distribution diversity with our latest MDM Podcast guest, NetPlus Alliance Owner, President and CEO Jennifer Murphy, who brought up the topic unprompted. 

“Diversity in distribution is a really beautiful thing,” she told me. “You have companies that range from being very progressive to those that still manage their leads with pencils and paper and count inventory by hand. Our group really accommodates this diversity and respects it, and we work to meet our members where they are.”

NetPlus Outlook: 3 in 4 Members Expect 2024 Sales Improvement (Dec. 12)

We all want progress in our businesses, but everyone’s pace for it is different. Except for a pandemic that forced rapid pivots to how distributors do business, this industry has a reputation of being slow to change and infuse new technologies or processes. Everyone’s situation has different factors, which explains why some companies can run to new solutions, while others walk and crawl.

This is why MDM, as well as industrial associations and buying groups like NetPlus Alliance, steer clear of telling distributors what to do, because one-size-fits-all essentially doesn’t exist in this landscape due to that aforementioned diversity. However, we can all help these firms move further along in their journey and at a pace that works for them.

“I think all of the groups do an excellent job in driving advocacy for their members and helping to remind them to keep walking towards those things that they need to do — maybe in tiny steps — to be more progressive companies,” Murphy explained. “I think when you’re in a group like mine, where we have members that are very large and some that are very small, I see how those companies serve and support their markets in really different and in similar ways.”

That diversity and fragmentation is what makes distribution so interesting. Whereas industries like telecom, retail, insurance or food production — where a handful of mega-companies dominate the landscape — the firms on MDM’s Top Distributors Lists still only comprise a small piece of the pie in their respective verticals, and this leads to so many unique stories about the ways these distributors do business. 

I appreciated Murphy sharing that perspective on behalf of NetPlus, which has served industrial, construction and contractor supplies distributors as a buying group since 2002, though its roots date back much further to the late 1800s.

Murphy represents the firm’s fifth generation of family-led leadership. Her father, Dan Judge, founded the firm and is seen as an icon in the industry supply space.

Besides the diversity topic, our discussion explored the fascinating history of NetPlus and how Murphy has seen the role of buying groups evolve in recent years. 

We touched on what NetPlus has been up to lately, as well as what Murphy has been hearing from the group’s membership in terms of trends, challenges and concerns. I also asked her what the outlook is for the customer markets that NetPlus serves.

Check out our episode via the audio player above, and you can find our entire library of past MDM Podcasts here.