Brent Grover was our speaker on an MDM Webcast this week, and as always with his background as a CEO and CPA, addressed a range of focus points for distributors to review as they manage the panic of 2009, the title of his talk. Brent is far from an alarmist, but he argues that this downturn is structurally different than others most business executives have experienced.
He covered the details, levers and pain points across several financial areas – financing, credit, cash flow, cost control – and how distributors can sharpen their focus in each. As moderator, I felt it offered some benchmarks and tools for distributors of all sizes to form the core of an executive team meeting on how to tighten the seams of the ship, even in the middle of a …
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According to Harvard Professor John Kotter, a sense of urgency is a desire to act on critical issues now – making real progress every day on issues that are central to an organization’s success. And when an economic crisis hits (or any crisis for that matter), a sense of urgency in a business becomes all that more important if you want to come out of that crisis ahead of where you started.
Unfortunately, Kotter says the recession has created very little true urgency. Why?
He said: “People don’t understand what true urgency is. The economic situation is creating a lot of false urgency, which is this anxiety-driven, anger-driven frenzy of activity where we all run in circles figuring out what to do. It is activity-focused not …
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A manufacturer, a distributor and a logistics coordinator are making a deal. The manufacturer says to the distributor, How do you want that delivered? The distributor says, “Overnight it to me on Tuesday; I need it Wednesday.” Meanwhile, the logistics coordinator mutters under his breath about how much money could have been saved by sending it LTL Monday night.
Sound familiar? The first part might, but what about the second? Did you know there was another option that could meet your needs and save you money?
For a recent article, three different players – Dan Muller of The Timken Company (the manufacturer), Doug Savage of Bearing Service Inc. (the distributor), and Don Louis of CoLinx (the …
Harvard Business School Professor John Kotter recently spoke with MDM Editor Lindsay Young about his new book, A Sense of Urgency. Kotter has researched and written a series of leading books on change management including Our Iceberg is Melting, a tale of business change told in fable form. Kotter says one of the biggest mistakes organizations make when pursuing change is not creating a high enough sense of urgency among employees to spark the needed shift in direction. The current economic situation has exasperated change efforts in many companies.
As Kotter says in his latest book, A Sense of Urgency: At the beginning of any effort to make changes of any magnitude, if a sense of urgency is not high enough, and complacency is not low enough, …
The above is shaping up to be the theme for 2009. It’s also the message so far from a strong response to a profitability survey MDM is conducting (see end of article for link if you haven’t filled it out). We will have a full survey report (with participants’ getting the first executive summary) in February, but I’d like to share a few early indicators, coupled with feedback on what we’re hearing from distributors.
This first full week of 2009 brought more bad news for manufacturing globally. In the U.S., wage and hiring freezes are starting to go into effect for 2009. Many distributors are targeting cost reduction of 5-10 percent this year, including headcount, to match anticipated revenue drops. With shaky indicators starting off the year, …
The economy has officially shifted into lower gear after a turbulent ride in the second half of 2008. This article is an overview of trends and events in the past year in the wholesale distribution sector.
At the end of 2007, MDM published an article titled, Preparing for Uncertainty in 2008.”At the time, the economy was starting to show signs of weakening. Certain sectors -automotive and housing — had already taken a dive. And deal-making had started to ease.
But we could not have guessed the enormity of change that would take place this year -particularly in the second half. Financial markets collapsed and previously stalwart institutions went under.
Residential construction plummeted further. In November, unemployment rose to 6.7%; half a million jobs …
According to a report released today by RSM McGladrey, executives of U.S. wholesale-distributors have altered their growth and operational strategies to offset sector weaknesses and the rising costs of doing business, mainly associated with labor and energy.
RSM McGladrey’s Distribution Industry Report was extracted from the results of the firm’s 2008 Manufacturing and Wholesale Distribution National Survey conducted earlier this year. More than 960 industry executives, including 303 Distribution executives from 284 companies responded to the survey.
According to the survey, business conditions for many distribution companies have declined. Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed described their companies as thriving and growing,”a decline of 21% from RSM …
We asked in the MDM Reader Survey recently what special topics you wanted to see covered by MDM in the next year. Here are some of those answers, with in some cases, links to recent premium content articles on the topic:
- Consolidation
- Enhancing distributor profitability (Pricing for Profitability)
- International Trends (Anixter Follows Customers Overseas)
- A closer look at whether distributors doing multiple acquisitions are successful
- Has private equity been good for distribution?
…
BNET (www.bnet.com) says one way that companies can boost employee morale in a time of budget cuts and layoff fears, is to sacrifice executive pay to send a message down the ladder that “we’re all in it together.”
The article cites $37.5B foodservice distributor Sysco Corp.’s experience. Apparently the distributor’s top 15 executives announced last summer they would voluntarily take a 5% pay cut. The rest of the executives got a pay freeze for the next year. Everyone else got a 3% pay increase -that is 50,000 employees.
A Sysco spokesman is quoted in the article as saying:
“We wanted to show our people that it was a tough economic time, but that the corporate office was going to take the first hit.”
And …
Mercer Consulting reported results of its recent Snapshot Survey, where more than 1,000 organizations in the first two weeks of November told about the challenges they face as a result of the current economic turmoil.
Despite all the bad news, according to Mercer, most appear to be “refraining from taking drastic actions.”Here are a few benchmarks:
- Nearly three-quarters of respondents say they are somewhat or very likely to reduce their 2009 pay increase budgets, but far fewer are somewhat or very likely to freeze salaries across the organization. Nearly two-thirds are not planning to reduce work forces by “significant levels.”
…
Like so many other companies in the current economy, 3M is finding itself in a position of making difficult decisions in order to survive. Over the past week, the company has announced that it would be laying off 2,300 workers before the end of the fourth quarter. Pay increases have already been deferred for many, and temporary workers and overtime have been eliminated. CEO George Buckley told analysts in a recent 2009 earnings outlook presentation that more cuts will be made if necessary.
But, according to Buckley, survival isn’t enough. The changes being made at the company are all being made with the perspective that they will strengthen the company for when the economy returns to more sane”conditions. “This is the time for prudence, but it’s not the time for …
The U.S. automotive industry is struggling, and that means anyone in the automotive supply channel is likely struggling, as well. I recently spoke with distributors and manufacturers in the channel for an article on the impact they see down the line.
Mike Hamzey Jr., vice president and legal counsel for R.M. Wright Co. in Farmington Hills, MI, provided some advice when thinking about how to survive the crisis: Do what you have to do, but don’t alienate your customers. There will still be options when all is said and done; we’re not the only distributor in town.”
Keep the lines of communication open, not only internally but externally as well. Your customers are aware of economic conditions, and they’d prefer not to be surprised when you need to change terms of …
The slowdown in the auto industry is being felt well beyond the Big Three automakers currently appealing to Congress for help. Distributors and manufacturers that serve the automotive industry are struggling to keep their own businesses solvent; business for many of them has dropped precipitously over the past few months.
Jeff Stohr, president of Conveyer and Caster -Equipment for Industry in Cleveland, OH, says he began noticing a slowdown in automotive about five years ago, but the real turning point was Nov. 1 of this year.
Our business at that time was a fraction of what would be considered normal,”Stohr says. The distributor of material handling products, casters and conveyor systems has annual revenues of $10 million to $15 million, with the automotive …
In Part 2 of this interview with Motion Industries President and CEO Bill Stevens, he delves deeper into trends he is seeing in Motion’s core markets, as well as issues distributors face going into 2009.
MDM: What opportunities do you have in the current market?
Bill Stevens: The exciting thing to me is the MRO market in North America is still very large. As long as there are manufacturing plants, some of what we sell is needed and that is an encouraging thought. My greatest concern is the instability of our economy. Our customers are most definitely affected by the deepening economic downturn.
How many people thought companies like Lehman Brothers and others would go like they did as quickly as they did? I think we all thought they …
A recent article in McKinsey Quarterly defines one of the key values that distributors offer to manufacturers in terms of getting a product efficiently into markets that are fragmented, either geographically or by size of industry or company. It serves to remind us that the local knowledge of a distributor of its market and customers is its greatest asset.
The article looks at the high-tech industry -companies that make computing, telecom and networking equipment. They have in recent years sold directly to customers or to resellers online or through their sales forces and have become less dependent on traditional distribution partners. But as OEMs look for …
From time to time before the end of 2008, we will be posting results and ideas from the recent MDM Reader Survey. Here’s a look at respondents’ strategic focus going into the new year.
In response to the MDM Reader Survey question, How have you changed your strategy for 2009 based on current economic trends?”, many readers -but not all -said they were making a change. Many said they were going back to basics. Improving customer service and pricing were both mentioned. Others are leaning operations to ensure efficiency and cut unnecessary costs.
Many respondents mentioned either layoffs or a hiring freeze, in addition to delaying major capital expenses. One respondent plans to improve maintenance on existing equipment to make it last longer. Others said they …
With everything that has happened in the past few months, it is no surprise that the economy is on nearly everyone’s mind, topping the list of concerns for manufacturers and distributors in the annual MDM Reader Survey. The collapse of financial markets and continued tightening of credit has added to the stress of everyday business.
It’s enough for me to manage my own company but now I must analyze my bank’s financials on an ongoing basis,”wrote one industrial distributor in the survey.
The next 12 to 18 months will be tough for many in the industry, says Brent Grover, CEO of Evergreen Consulting: “Demand is weak, margins are squeezed and most companies are faced with costly excess capacity.”
The U.S. government hopes that recently passed …
Rick Peterson, president of All-West Fasteners, Seattle, WA, a regional industrial fastener and electronic hardware and components distributor, recently spoke at the Specialty Tools and Fasteners Distributors Association convention and trade show in Denver, CO. He is the group’s outgoing president. The event drew nearly 4,500, down from the past two years but not far off 2005 attendance.
In his speech to the attendees, outgoing STAFDA President Rick Peterson touched on business practices his company has benefited from. One of those: Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI). The goal of VMI, he says, is to make sure the customer’s production line or job never shuts down due to a product shortage, and to minimize the total cost of supply.
Our VMI program has played a …
About this report: This is the MDM Public Distributor Report, provided on a quarterly basis to subscribers of Modern Distribution Management. The report is available online only.
Click here to download this report in pdf.
Not surprisingly, this last quarter’s earnings calls and annual analyst meetings were filled with public distributors’assuring investors that they were well-positioned to withstand the economic downturn.
“Our strong cash flow and liquidity, combined with a strong underleveraged balance sheet, gives us a powerful advantage against the small distributors who control the bulk of the market,”says MSC Industrial CFO Chuck Boehlke.<br ...
This is part of a series looking at the distribution software industry. This article examines challenges and what distributors should expect in the next five years.
In the year or so leading up to Y2K, many distributors upgraded their computer systems to protect their businesses from what was supposed to be a widespread system breakdown when the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, 2000. The scare fueled massive technology investment in businesses worldwide.
And now, thanks to technological improvements making viable solutions more affordable and scalable to distributors of all sizes, many are looking to invest again or transition from their legacy systems to an off-the-shelf solution or a modernized interface.
In a recent MDM survey, about 24 …
