In research for the new book from the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, Facing the Forces of Change: Decisive Actions for an Uncertain Economy, author Guy Blissett found that 51 percent of survey respondents offer value-added services associated with products, and 43 percent offer discrete services for a fee, with no product purchase required. Most plan to do so by 2015.

But while nearly half place “high importance” on assessing service offering profitability, only a fifth say they actually do an “excellent” job of this. MDM Editor Lindsay Konzak spoke to Blissett about these findings and what distributors can do to take a more strategic approach to building a profitable services portfolio.