While election’s completion doesn’t allay all the concerns we had pre-election, it does bring some certainty into the equation.
Latest In Management
If you’re not careful about spending cuts, you may hurt your ability to grow.
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Think both short- and long-term when developing future leaders in your business.
Wolseley talks program that supports strategy of going from ‘loose confederation of branches’ to more centrally managed business model.
Upcoming conference goes outside of the box to help distributors think differently about their businesses.
Don’t try to please everyone. Instead, segment, target and position your company for better margins.
MDM Editor Lindsay Konzak recently attended the Advanced Profitability Improvement Conference in Arizona, featuring some of the top speakers on wholesale distribution strategy and management, including Brent Grover, Bruce Merrifield, Tony Pericle, Jon Schreibfeder and more. The focus of the conference was how distributors can make smarter and more informed decisions about where to target their resources to boost margins going into 2013. Analytics should be the foundation of any move on this front, the speakers said. This article presents a summary of main ideas presented by some of the speakers at the conference.
Expenses exceed gross profit on too many sales, according to Randy MacLean of Waypoint Analytics. In fact, he says, “there is no correlation between gross margins and profit.” He was speaking at the semiannual Advanced Profitability Improvement Conference in September in Scottsdale, AZ. So what happens? Where do the profits go?
MacLean says there are five ways profits disappear before reaching the bottom line.
The cost to serve a …
Brent Grover outlines what distributors should avoid when embarking on a planning process.
Randy MacLean: 5 ways profit disappears before reaching the bottom line.
Uncertainty permeates today’s business environment. In fact, I’ve spoken with a number of distributors over the past couple of months who are holding off on expansions or hiring because of it. As National Association of Manufacturers chief economist Chad Moutray told MDM last month: “There really has been a sitting-on-the-hands mentality both on the part of consumers on businesses.”
That said, there are always …
Each hurricane season, there’s a renewed effort by many businesses to implement disaster plans, but most still do not have a formal, updated plan for business continuity. This article looks at the first steps a distributor should take to ensure that its business can keep running should the unplanned happen.
F&F Industrial Equipment, a one-branch industrial distributor in Middletown, NY, has been proactive about developing a business continuity plan in the case of disaster.
While the distributor itself has never been affected by a natural disaster or other major disruption, it has witnessed customers’ experiences with storms and other unplanned events and the havoc those can wreak if a business is not prepared.
“Knock on wood nothing happens here,” says Frank Fasano Jr., vice president of operations. But, he says, “you really never know.”
As recent events have shown, a disaster can hit anywhere. Consider …
Study reveals three factors that contribute to poor leadership.
Your customers know what their problems are, even if they can’t fully articulate them.
A recent report from PwC highlights seven factors that manufacturers should consider when deciding where to grow.
How can you strengthen the organizational factors that lead to long-term health?
Hisco case study shows the value of involving branches in the strategic planning process.
In the recent MDM Webcast, Managing for Profit: Five Building Blocks of Success, Jonathan Byrnes, senior MIT lecturer and author of Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink, offers strategies in five key areas that can, when applied together, help managers lead companies to a better bottom line. The webcast, the final in a four-part series on managing for profitability, is available on DVD at www.mdm.com/islands.
Even in leading companies, 30 percent to 40 percent of the business is unprofitable. At the same time, 20 percent to 30 percent is highly profitable, enough to subsidize the loss, according to Jonathan Byrnes, senior MIT lecturer and author of Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink. While many business leaders tend to focus on the unprofitable aspects of their businesses in an attempt to fix what’s broken, Byrnes says companies would do well to focus more on those products and initiatives that contribute to the bottom line.
“If you don’t secure that business, you’re really in trouble,” he says.
In the recent MDM Webcast, Managing for Profit, Byrnes recommends leaders focus on five building blocks that, when executed effectively and simultaneously, can …
Brent Grover: What you leave behind is more important than where you go.
Strategic alliances between distributors should be aimed at improving business for all participants. But this isn’t always the driver of organizations that enable independent distributors to get together.
“Our experience is that it’s often reactive in nature,” says Brent Grover, principal at Evergreen Consulting LLC and author of The Little Black Book of Strategic Planning for Distributors. Grover recently took part in an “Ask the Author” webcast event with MDM, answering audience questions about his new book, which is available at www.mdm.com/littleblackbook.
In his experience, the frequent focus on national accounts …
