We wanted to title this “Looking Forward to 2010”, however, we debated on the word “forward” given the forecasts that we’re seeing. Consider: “There is so much uncertainty about the first half of next year that until you have a […]
In a market that many economist project to be flat for a while, manufacturers and distributors are looking at their back office to identify where they can gain efficiencies. Many companies rely on older ERP systems and only utilize between […]
In other words, a little bit of everything to end the week! August marks ElectricalTrends’ two year anniversary. During this time we’ve had over 28,195 visits resuting in 39,241 page views from 13,525 unique visitors (all numbers are according to […]
As most industry participants and observers know by now, Rexel has decided to standardize upon one ERP software system, Activant’s Eclipse package. Rexel had been operating different systems for a number of years and trying to aggregate information to support […]
We’ve been talking with distributors the last couple of weeks and a common refrain is the lack of profitability in much of their businesses. Many are attributing this to marketplace pricing strategies and some distributors’ desire to take share based […]
As we celebrate our 233rd birthday this weekend we wanted to wish you a wonderful weekend with family and loved ones. The Declaration of Independence was conceived based upon the concept that people had the “right” to pursue “life, liberty […]
or this could be called “protecting your back-side”!The economic challenges faced by many distributors creates concern amongst manufacturer credit personnel about a distributor’s ability to satisfy their obligations (pay their bills). This can particularly be an issue for smaller distributors […]
Recently we conducted research on the state of SPAs in the electrical market for a client, from which we then wrote a white paper. The client, Datalliance, is offering the white paper on their website. They didn’t have any input […]
A comedic thought for today. Recently we wrote an article for Electrical Wholesaling categorizing distributors as smart growth companies, cash flow companies or reactor companies (and yes, some may be toxic!). The article will appear in the June issue. (if […]
The Internet provides the ability for business interactions to become more transparent. Many distributors have used systems that integrate them with GCs and contractors to ensure projects are kept on schedule; distributors and manufacturers have been streamlining their processes through […]
