We’re a month past the first quarter and publicly held companies are starting to report their quarterly reports. Here we review ABB and Schneider Electric. (comments are in italics) ABB Within the channel we think of ABB as ABB products and […]
Over the past month or so Allen and I have had a number of calls for data. Some are from owners / senior management, some from marketing personnel and some from operational staff. The calls are from manufacturers and distributors. […]
Yes, we’re talking about liens! They types that accounting / credit people like, not “lean” as in “lean processes” which we’ll touch on in the near future when we discuss innovation. Why liens? Basically because a couple of weeks ago […]
As you sit around your corporate boardroom and and make decisions that impact growth either via acquisition or generating incremental sales, many don’t give consideration to PRODUCTIVITY (in the back office). Why is that? Well, many assume, albeit incorrectly, that all the […]
Equitable compensation is a topic that is near and dear to every manufacturer, distributor, manufacturer rep and salesperson. After all, why “sell” a product if you are not compensated for it? This is one of the key issues facing electrical […]
Feedback from manufacturers and distributors indicate a rather significant drop in sales but recent conversations indicate that margins could be even more significantly impacted. While industrial margins typically are higher than contractor / construction business, this quickly could become a […]
This week we received copies of TED magazine and Electrical Wholesaling. Given that next week is the NAED South-Central, both provided a “forecast / overview” of the regional market. As expected there are pockets of growth as well as areas […]
If you are stymied with geographical growth and think that many of your customers are not buying all they can from you, the odds are stacked in your favor that they aren’t. Why? Because you don’t know. Unless you have […]
Recently we touched on how the emergence of connected lighting is opening new opportunities for manufacturers and could for distributors. The reason for “could” is that the opportunity potentially can be much more than selling fixtures. It could explode into […]
Grainger and WESCO are typically good industry benchmarks to get a sense of the industrial MRO market. Grainger also sometimes provides insights into the institutional market, so let’s look at their end of year / quarterly reports where they also […]
