Lead photo: From left – Readmore Ventures’ Kevin Reid-Morris, Schneider Electric’s Sarah Fiehler, ORS Medco’s Kevin Short and First Supply’s Kathryn Poehling-Seymour seen Sept. 12 in a panel session at MDM’s 2024 SHIFT Conference in Denver, CO. (MDM photo)

Last week MDM’s SHIFT 2024 conference brought together a powerful collection of stories by distribution leaders who have been executing on transformation and innovation work. Here are a few quick takeaways after a week of reflection (and mild exhaustion).

Market trends: The third quarter of 2024 has neither been friendly nor positive relative to 2Q24 — sluggish at best. There was optimism toward the decision to drop the interest rate by the Fed (half point earlier this week) to kickstart some positive investment and customer commitment; there was also impatience to get the election over so we can move on. Everybody is ready for more stability and a return to more normal economic cycles and conditions.

Despite the turbulence, there are some strong tailwinds and opportunity ahead. Among many other powerful sessions and panels, our three fireside chats were so insightful. My biggest takeaway from these was that regardless of your size, you could learn from their very different and powerful leadership styles. We had CEOs from ABC Supply — North America’s largest building supplies distributor; Stellar Industrial — a beacon for the power of entrepreneurial, independent distribution; and Wesco — North America’s largest electrical distributor that has been on an incredible transformation journey.

It was the largest and strongest event in our eight years of live events production (Full disclosure: I say that every time). I am deeply grateful and humbled by the incredible generosity and depth of knowledge we had in the room for three days — attendees, panelists, speakers and sponsors.

The foundation of our SHIFT conference series, now in the third year under this brand, is distribution business model innovation. There has never been a stronger imperative for leaders of distribution companies to dedicate resources and time to building the better version of their business. Nor have there been stronger opportunities to leverage technology to execute on innovation (cue the AI meme: not a magic bullet, but a powerful lever that is leveling the playing field for creating competitive advantage).

And to follow up on that, my next takeaway from last week is far from a sidenote. We had the largest portfolio of technology and service providers present of any event we’ve produced, and deep engagement. The level of digital and commercial experience we hosted was unparalleled and created deep value for us all.

For three days in downtown Denver, we explored the front lines of how leaders are building the future of distribution — innovating go-to-market models — and the playbook looks like this: a hybrid sales process, powered by digital and driven by data analytics. This requires a shift in mindset and focus. Business model innovation has to be intentional, created and operated by a culture of innovation; it requires the talent, team and skillsets to think creatively, work collaboratively and execute change management effectively.

If that sounds like a lot of moving parts, it is! And it is so energizing to bring together so many leaders who are strategically working on all these elements of distribution business model innovation. SHIFT developed out of our previous five Sales GPS conferences as our research evolved to include deeper elements of digital and data analytics.

We rebranded to SHIFT as we realized that effective transformation of traditional outside sales models to serve customers better and more efficiently requires an integrated approach. Once you start transforming your sales process with stronger inside sales and service roles, you have to integrate it with omnichannel development. Many leaders started with elevating their digital capability. To do that effectively, they had to clean up and normalize data structured for ERP and invest in a PIM. The common progression is to go from better product data onto strengthening supplier and customer data.

Every distribution leadership team has been on a unique journey of innovation and transformation. Some were thrown into the deep end at the beginning of 2020. Others had done some laps before the world changed. The future of distribution and what success looks like requires a very different go-to-market model than even a few years ago.

The Final Word

My biggest takeaway from last week is a deep pride in our team’s work. SHIFT was a validation that our focus on these critical transformation levers is helping many leaders not only chart a course for the future; many are already seeing significant commercial impact from the strategies, tactics and ideas that these events and meeting of minds are supporting.

Looking further out, MDM is already in planning mode for our 2025 SHIFT Conference, set for May 13-15 just outside of Denver in Englewood, CO. Stay tuned for registration info.