Management Archives

Customer Intimacy is Operational Excellence

The following is an excerpt of Brent Grover’s latest distribution management book, The Little Black Book of Strategic Planning for Distributors, published by Modern Distribution Management. In this article, Grover argues that distributors need to focus both on operational excellence and customer intimacy, rather than choosing one over the other.

In The Discipline of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers, Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market, authors Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema adapted the three Michael Porter strategies into a choice of customer intimacy, operational excellence or product leadership. If you agree that product leadership isn’t a viable option for most distributors, the authors leave distributors with two alternatives: operational excellence or customer intimacy. In the following paragraphs I will argue for a third option.

Strategic choice No. 1 in The Discipline of Market Leaders is operational excellence, keeping costs down …

March 10, 2013

Management

Commentary: This Year, Talent is the Biggest Differentiator

So far 2013 has been somewhat turbulent. M&A activity has continued (MSC’s planned acquisition of Barnes, for example), as does overall economic/market uncertainty. It provides distribution executives with some choices to make about priorities and where to invest in initiatives that will produce the best return in 2013.

That’s the fancy way of posing the question: “How do we protect the revenue we have, and where are we going to…

March 10, 2013

Data & Analytics

How Employee Experience Thwarts Data-Led Decision-Making

Mike Marks: Employee wisdom can mislead and is inherently a short-term asset.

March 1, 2013

Free

The 6 Cs of Unifying Your Employees Under One Message

How managers can walk the line between encouraging creativity and freedom on their teams and pushing toward the same goals.

February 28, 2013

Free

Tip: Make Sure Messaging is Uniform Across All Branches

It’s critical that corporate leadership communicate a clear vision and strategy internally.

February 27, 2013

Free

Why the Trend is Your Friend

By tracking trends, it’s possible to match expenses and cost-to-serve with the business, without fuss or emotions.

February 21, 2013

Free

Assessing Strategic Investments: What Measures Should You Use?

Jonathan Byrnes: Why some measures – including the payback period – are not ideal for deciding whether to move forward.

February 18, 2013

Economic Trends

Weather Economic Woes with a Worst-Case Business Plan

A worst-case plan lets distributors respond quickly to forces out of their control.

February 15, 2013

eCommerce

How Channel Evolution is Changing the Competitive Landscape

Channels are shifting thanks to convergence, product technology and e-commerce.

February 13, 2013

Free

The 3 Elements of Building a Profit-Driven Management Team

De-emphasize activities that do not take full advantage of core competencies and motivate managers to operate with a new performance discipline.

February 12, 2013

Free

2 Critical Questions to Ask When Assessing Strategic Investments

Jonathan Byrnes: Few companies use the cost of capital correctly in deciding whether to invest.

February 11, 2013

Management

Commentary: The Puck Stops Here

I’ve been a hockey fan since the 1960s. But someone has to say it: Stop paying attention to Wayne Gretzky’s advice about skating to where the puck will be. It’s been beaten to death countless times by consultants and motivational speakers.

For a long time, it worked well to follow the Great One’s advice. Good distribution companies played where the puck was – they executed well in established markets. Great distribution companies could see where the puck was going – they dedicated resources to find and monetize emerging growth opportunities.

Growth is harder to come by today; market …

February 10, 2013

Management

New Year, New Approach to Business

Mike Marks of Indian River Consulting Group says distributors need to break out of the traditional mold of doing business and think differently about how to stand out in an increasingly busy market. In today’s business climate, distributors must do more to maintain their edge.

This is an exclusive summary of the recent MDM Webcast, What Distributor Innovation Looks Like in 2013: Rethinking Your Business Model. The program is available on-demand or on DVD at www.mdm.com/innovation.

Market share incumbents held hostage to the old ways of doing things are losing ground to “rule-breakers,” innovative market share challengers with a fresh perspective, according to Indian River Consulting Group’s Mike Marks in the recent MDM Webcast, What Distributor Innovation Looks Like in 2013: Rethinking Your Business Model.

History shows us that incremental improvements to the same business model can lead to success. The successful automotive company Porsche, for example, has focused on continuous product development along the same platform for years. And Marks says …

February 10, 2013

Companies

DXP Enterprises Named to Forbes Best Small Companies List

The distributor was No. 24 on the list, which looks at sales and earnings growth and other factors for companies below $1 billion in sales.

February 6, 2013

Free

Balance the Blue Sky Mentality with Front-Line Intelligence

Brent Grover recommends getting regular feedback from the front lines and from customers and suppliers.

February 4, 2013

Free

What Businesses Can Learn from the Super Bowl Blackout

Plan for the worst, and when it happens, you can respond rather than just react. That’s what businesses can learn from when the lights went out at the 2013 Super Bowl.

February 4, 2013

Free

Podcast: Streamline Instructions for Less Downtime

Manufacturing Revival Radio talks with Martin Tauber of AdvancePierre Foods.

January 31, 2013

Management

Commentary: Take a Fresh Look at Your Business

One theme that has rung true from many of our outside contributors to MDM is the importance of getting out of your comfort zone and thinking differently about how to improve profitability.

We recently started running a blog on mdm.com from Stuart Mechlin, a member of MDM’s Editorial Advisory Board and formerly the senior vice president for Affiliated Distributors’ Industrial Supply Division. He posits that…