After two straight bumper revenue years, the distribution sector is navigating a slower-but-solid 2023, while 2024 forecasts call for a slowdown. Join Baird’s David Manthey and MDM’s Tom Gale as they analyze economic conditions and the demand outlook for the rest of this year and beyond. The webcast will feature brand new data and insights from the 2Q23 Baird-MDM Industrial Distribution Survey.   This program breaks down the latest economic trends, emerging growth opportunities, what to watch out for and how distributors can capitalize on the current competitive landscape.

Distributors have quickly learned in recent years — sometimes the hard way — that keeping up with the pace of customers’ rapidly-evolving buying experience expectations is crucial to winning or maintaining business. The proliferation of AI and self-service tools have only made things more interesting, and complicated. This webcast will analyze MDM and Infor’s latest research benchmarks on distributors’ technology utilization in this area compared to a year ago, along with insights from distributor panelists about how they are navigating the CX journey.

Despite challenged supply chains, a difficult labor environment and whispers of a looming industrial slowdown, wholesale distributors rode the inflation wave to a bumper revenue year in 2022. This led to considerable jumps in year-to-year revenues charted across MDM’s 2023 Top Distributors Lists. Join this free webcast as Executive Editor Mike Hockett provides the first look at our rankings in various industries, slotted by their latest fiscal revenues within each industry. We’ll examine the key factors and moves that led certain distributors to see major movement on our lists, including a few companies that made first-time appearances.

As distributors navigate market instability, margin protection discipline is paramount. Join us for a webinar featuring Tony Pericle, the architect of distributor solutions that have generated over $1 billion in profit in the past two years. In this webinar, Tony will share practical examples of how distributors can maximize profitability, including best practices for pricing, cost management, and work-flow optimization. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from a proven industry expert and discover how to build a resilient business that can weather any storm and emerge stronger than ever.

Even with great salespeople, distributors often serve the wrong customers in the wrong channels in the wrong ways. Most distributors have a significant opportunity to drive top and bottom-line growth by optimizing their go-to-market (GTM) strategy and approach, particularly their outside and inside sales forces. Many distributors have invested in an expensive sales force, but it’s not optimized — and that puts senior management at risk.

In this free 30-minute webcast, attendees will receive high-level insights on how to right-size and redesign their outside and inside sales forces to perfectly align them with customer needs and opportunities. These tips will help create happier customers, more productive sales staff and a bigger bottom line. 

There is an automation tool for virtually every process of a distributor’s business, but they aren’t one-size-fits-all solutions. From sales ordering to rebate management and everything in-between, we’ll walk through the options that distributors of different sizes have implemented.

The past three years of rapidly-evolving buying habits have shown distributors the high value of leveraging and analyzing customer data. But while most distributors agree that putting data into practice is important, how many are actually doing so, and how are they using it? In this free webcast, we’ll dive into the results of brand new MDM research that polled more than 110 distributors about how they are leveraging metrics and data analytics to support sales operations. Find out how your data analytics usage stacks up with that of your industry peers, and how modern tools can help distributors do more with less while making sales smarter, faster and easier.

Providing an extraordinary and sustainable buying experience needs more than just having the right product information in place. Today's buyers expect personalized and accurate product content – no matter where they are getting in touch with your products. In this webcast, you will learn how to create a comprehensive buying experience that reduces shopping cart cancellations, converts more customers and leads to incremental sales with greater efficiencies.

In this MDM Webcast, McKinsey Partners Alex Abdelnour and Kevin Sachs share their latest research on the recipe for leveraging innovation to win in distribution, including a panel discussion with executives who have successfully applied the recipe. Those who attended the 2022 MDM SHIFT Conference saw these McKinsey Partners present their research on what leaders have done to outperform in the evolving distribution landscape — a landscape characterized by below-GDP growth, increasing customer expectations, accelerating consolidation, increased disintermediation, non-traditional disruptors and tight labor markets. Companies that successfully transformed in this landscape showed an ability to deliver outsize growth while expanding margins. To achieve this, they innovated — whether in business model, service, experience, process or some combination.

Cyber threats and malware have been a security threat to distributors ever since they began launching websites, and those risks have grown exponentially in today’s hyper-connected business environment. But even with cyberthreats everywhere, they can easily be overlooked by businesses when speed-to-market is an utmost priority and other challenges exist. This webcast will examine what cybersecurity and malware threats exist for distributors, what they look like and what business areas are often targeted. You’ll also learn about blind spots in your cyber defenses and where you may be most vulnerable. Above all else, you’ll learn how to make your business more vigilant against these many threats and the actions you can take to avoid a crippling security breach.

As we look to 2023, the economy is top of mind. Distributors that invest in tools and technology to streamline sales and distribution processes will see an increase in employee productivity and will have a distinct advantage over their competition. This webcast will look at ways distributors can accelerate their path to productivity and explore the "Why" of streamlined efficient processes; enhance the "Total Experience" for both buyers and sellers; and upgrade systems to take advantage of most recent innovations.

The most dangerous aspect of digital sales and marketing strategies is that distributors don’t know what they don’t know and tend to overlook some of the most basic components. To ensure your digital presence is elevated to its highest and most profitable level, don’t miss this webcast where author Susan Merlo shares the six steps from The Digital Distributor Program. She will explain why they are so critical to distributors in their efforts to maximize efficiencies of digital strategies, generate more valuable leads and increase sales cycle trajectory.

Distributors large and small have relied on various forms of automation to navigate the endless disruptions of the past few years. In this webcast, you’ll hear how distributors are putting automation tools to work across their operations, from warehousing, to order-taking to delivery — ultimately cutting costs, lowering risk and enhancing the customer experience in today’s environment of constant uncertainty. What part(s) of your business makes sense to implement automation? We'll look to answer that question and more. Register today.

Join us on Oct. 6 as Tom Gale and Brian Friedle discuss real-world examples that illustrate the value of using data-based technology vs. the serious financial impacts of leaving sales decisions to gut instincts. If you are a distribution or sales leader tasked with finding tech solutions that grow revenue, increasing bottom line profits and building winning sales teams, this webcast is designed for you.

Adapting to growing customer expectations for the buying experience is something every distributor is trying to get right. A differentiated buying experience is vital in a changing buyer landscape and leveraging eCommerce allows you to deliver self-service tools to buyers and free up your sales teams to focus on highest value activities. Join Ed Kennedy, Product Marketing Lead for Adobe Commerce, Jason Capshaw, Director of Demand Generation for the Dorn Group, and MDM Executive Editor Mike Hockett as they engage in a lively discussion about how to make the most of a changing distribution eCommerce environment.

What goes into how you evaluate a current or potential ERP vendor? This webinar will explore the results from Epicor's 2022 Distribution Industry Insights Report, a new survey of your distribution peers that asks that very question across numerous factors. See how your criteria stack up with that of your peers.

Do the rumblings of a slowing economy mean distributors should dial back their business goals? It doesn’t look like it. In fact, it’s the perfect time to capitalize on CRM and Business Intelligence (BI) tools to expand into new markets, new products and new levels of success. You’ll come away with solid examples of where your business can expand strategically, despite challenging economic factors.

The landscape of digital platforms, networks and marketplaces has become more complex, more fragmented, and more threatening to traditional distribution channels. VCs, startups and tech monopolies are all investing heavily – and distributors risk being left behind. But there is also more opportunity for innovators. Join Alex Moazed and Nick Johnson of Applico, along with MDM’s Tom Gale, as they examine the current state of distribution tech innovation and investment, the evolution of B2B marketplaces, and effective strategies for distributors to mitigate risk and capture growth opportunities.