Thanks Mark, very inspirational. It would be awesome if the distribution industry can catch fire in the way you describe. I think it comes down to incremental wins. The delivery notification thing caught fire in our world. Nobody asked for it but customers love it. I have advocated more along the lines of understanding the whereabouts of items and our customers need, but maybe that's not sexy enough. If we can give our customers real time tracking of their back orders, before they hit the road, it will be received just as well imo. Of course this would mean a lot of work for our vendors and the revealing of their internal weaknesses in ship date management. But I maintain that rough date estimation and then changing the dates all the time as more becomes clear are better than no dates. And in my world the concern is mainly special order stuff, not run of the mill items. Happy New Year !
Thank you, Steve. Excellent insights. On a related note, I hear that while web stores are essential for distributors, a technology platform that is "delivery first" might be game-changing. That is, instead of ordering a product online and selecting delivery options, a platform might lead with delivery services, allowing the customer to select from options, or better, design their custom delivery needs including measuring service levels. Food for thought, perhaps.
Thanks, that's not an idea I have heard before but I wholeheartedly agree that makes sense whenever possible. In construction the reality of today is that installers figure out their next day needs the afternoon of the day before. We are set up to take orders any time one day, process them overnight, and deliver to jobsites next AM. My point was more towards specials that are only available when vendors can get them through manufacturing. Even before the pandemic their production schedules were unreliable. When and how they can get these specials determines their installation schedules. Lack of transparency on availability offers tremendous risk to contractors. If they knew this availability, even if it were longer than they liked, they could schedule labor around it. With less labor availabile this efficiency is more needed now than ever. Ordering specials ahead of time and warehousing them is an alternative but not an attractive one. The biggest risk is that architects tweak the job design specs which determines the special spec. We have had problems buying and storing things for customers who later determine they no longer need them.
Thanks Mark, very inspirational. It would be awesome if the distribution industry can catch fire in the way you describe. I think it comes down to incremental wins. The delivery notification thing caught fire in our world. Nobody asked for it but customers love it. I have advocated more along the lines of understanding the whereabouts of items and our customers need, but maybe that's not sexy enough. If we can give our customers real time tracking of their back orders, before they hit the road, it will be received just as well imo. Of course this would mean a lot of work for our vendors and the revealing of their internal weaknesses in ship date management. But I maintain that rough date estimation and then changing the dates all the time as more becomes clear are better than no dates. And in my world the concern is mainly special order stuff, not run of the mill items. Happy New Year !
Thank you, Steve. Excellent insights. On a related note, I hear that while web stores are essential for distributors, a technology platform that is "delivery first" might be game-changing. That is, instead of ordering a product online and selecting delivery options, a platform might lead with delivery services, allowing the customer to select from options, or better, design their custom delivery needs including measuring service levels. Food for thought, perhaps.
Thanks, that's not an idea I have heard before but I wholeheartedly agree that makes sense whenever possible. In construction the reality of today is that installers figure out their next day needs the afternoon of the day before. We are set up to take orders any time one day, process them overnight, and deliver to jobsites next AM. My point was more towards specials that are only available when vendors can get them through manufacturing. Even before the pandemic their production schedules were unreliable. When and how they can get these specials determines their installation schedules. Lack of transparency on availability offers tremendous risk to contractors. If they knew this availability, even if it were longer than they liked, they could schedule labor around it. With less labor availabile this efficiency is more needed now than ever. Ordering specials ahead of time and warehousing them is an alternative but not an attractive one. The biggest risk is that architects tweak the job design specs which determines the special spec. We have had problems buying and storing things for customers who later determine they no longer need them.
More excellent comments. Thank you!