Earlier this week Cree announced its 2016 fourth quarter fiscal year performance. The following are notes from their investor call but, the end result was essentially “what’s going on with Cree?” given that the stock essentially tanked thereafter. From their […]
It’s Q2 earning season, providing distributors (and manufacturers) with an opportunity to benchmark their performance, gain insights (or confirmation) on what they are seeing in the market and possibly learn a little from publicly held companies. First up is Grainger whose […]
An issue we’re starting to hear more and more about is Joint Business Planning (JBP). We started hearing rumblings just before the NAED National from some larger distributors and manufacturers that the planning process was taking too long (not getting […]
We’d like to take a few moments to welcome our newest advertiser, Unilog. Unilog, as many distributors know, is an ecommerce anda data content management serving distributors and manufacturers in many industries. The company has an affinity for the electrical […]
Over the past couple of months we’ve touched on the changes that the lighting industry is undergoing. While much of it relates to LEDs, the “lamp” business, lighting controls and connectivity, we also mentioned how lighting can become a data […]
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 […]
Last week Houston Wire & Cable held it’s Q4 / 2015 annual earnings call. As many in the industry know, Houston Wire and Cable, while categorized as a manufacturer, is, in reality, more of a master distributor given that they […]
The lighting market continues to represent some of the greatest opportunities for distributors. At the recent NAED South-Central, every lighting manufacturer reported minimum 2015 sales increases of 20%. Goals for 2016 are the same, if not higher. The market is […]
A couple of weeks ago I attended the NEMRA meeting as Channel Marketing Group has been working with NEMRA on its POS / POT initiative (point of sale / point of transfer). I was there to launch a draft of […]
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 […]
