Deep Dive: Exploring the future of distribution

We are charting a course toward the future of work and innovation in B2B; can you help?

I have started research for my next book! I share my concept, approach, and early discoveries in this edition, and I invite all subscribers to share feedback and ideas. Many of you have helped with my five books published as a Fellow with the NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence, and I want to thank you for sharing your insights, experiences, and time. Your generous contributions are essential for my work and deeply appreciated. Conversations start with four questions: Are you innovating your business? How? How far have you traveled? Why can’t you go farther? Then, I look for help. I find new concepts, tools, and examples that can help innovators break through barriers. I bring these ideas back to conversations and explore how they might be put to work. I collect stories and, with approval, share them. In my new project, I will continue to write about B2B, distribution, and innovation. I will publish for a broad audience of business readers, leaders, managers, workers, and anyone interested in the future of work, learning, business, economics, society, and technology. It’s going to be an exciting ride, and I invite every subscriber to join our journey.

What is distribution?

Distribution is everything that happens after a product is manufactured, produced, or created. Distribution happens as a product makes its way to customers, and sometimes as it returns. Distributors fulfill a key role in the distribution of physical products, but manufacturers also perform distribution activities. Non-physical products also require distribution. Movies, TV shows, videos, and games are streamed, downloaded, sold in stores, and viewed in theaters. Like manufacturers, content creators may distribute directly to customers, or through others, or both. Platforms offer another future for distribution, by connecting individuals and groups to exchange products, services, knowledge, and more, functioning as a disruptor to (or collaborator with) traditional linear value chains. The evolution of products will also change distribution. For example, as products become smart, they are both physical and non-physical, made up of hardware, software, algorithms, data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Smart products connect manufacturers with customers, allowing added features, chatbot communications, managed performance, remote repairs, and self-service, while assuming, automating, and eliminating distribution functions.

All of distribution is in flux, evolving in fits and starts, slowly and quickly, but always relentlessly.

Why a book about the future of distribution?

Distribution is essential and at risk. Distribution is changing, often driven by outsiders acting through self-interested disruption. Distribution is everywhere, but at the same time, invisible to many and understood by few. Achieving the promise of optimized distribution requires engagement of distribution’s stakeholders, policymakers, and practitioners. B2B innovation and distribution are my passions, and through this book, I hope to make a difference. Here’s why:

• Distribution is essential. Products cannot reach customers without distribution and, therefore, distribution serves every member of every community. But distribution is mostly unknown to anyone except a select slice of industry insiders, especially the part of distribution that is B2B (not B2C). Distribution does more than delivery. Distribution lets us know about products, helps us understand and use them, delivers them to where they are needed, and follows up to ensure our experiences are excellent by offering advice, training, repairs, and returns. The world cannot function without distribution.

• Distribution is at risk. Distribution is at risk because distribution’s stakeholders—all product creators, buyers, owners, and users—are absent from its evolution. Market disruptors and purveyors of digital transformation are steering markets, forcing change, and directed by their self-interested objectives. Products will always find their way to market, but not always with the best support for achieving customer and social impact. Without awareness and participation by stakeholders, innovation will disappoint and inadequately serve us all.

• Distribution is the future. Every society, in every nation, is on the cusp of a new, yet unnamed age, one that emerges after the dawn of the digital age, the reshuffling of global and local supply chains, and shifting social values and politics. In many economies, distribution can account for 25% or more of the gross domestic product (GDP). In more human terms, distribution’s highest purpose, achieved by providing products and creating experiences, is to help us all do our work and live our lives. Distribution’s future is our future.

Why write a book now?

My research and writing will explain and explore the heart, soul, and future of distribution. I will look for the best thought leadership for the future of work, learning, business, economics, society, and technology. I will dig deep with distribution’s practitioners and stakeholders, gathering stories about aspirations, innovations, and progress. My goal is to find foresight for the future in the middle, between today’s ongoing business transformations and tomorrow’s future of everything.

During the current pandemic, distribution gained a moment of public awareness. The promise of vaccines cannot be realized if they do not reach everyone, everywhere, all around the world. Distribution is filling this essential need, but in another way, distribution is falling down. As I write, the global supply chain is in continued chaos due to restarting businesses, pent-up demand, a shortage of workers and drivers, and poorly synchronized shipping, port operations, and last-mile deliveries. This moment of public success and failure is the right time to explore distribution’s future and to tell its many stories.

What is my approach?

I operate as a flywheel. I apply the experiences, principles, frameworks, and tools learned through more than 25 years as a channel strategist to recognize new trends, solutions, and possibilities. My writing goes for naught if it is not applied, and through feedback, I gain insight to direct my research. All of my books, and especially this one, are made possible by my newsletter, network, and partners:

• Newsletter. My work begins with my newsletter, Mark Dancer on Innovating B2B. Every edition shares a leading-edge “future of” concept, supported by research and experience, and digs in to find ideas for B2B innovations. I offer questions to help innovators make plans and act. The newsletter is published weekly and sent by email. Subscribers that generously support my work with paid subscriptions receive all editions. Free subscribers receive one edition per month. Comments are encouraged. My archive includes 26 editions. Going forward, I am working to offer bonus content in the form of recorded interviews and observations on newsworthy events. My newsletter is where I work out ideas and identify themes to advance the discipline and practice of B2B innovation.

• Network. I cannot do my work without active engagement with a supportive network of business leaders and innovators. My past work consulting on channel strategy and go-to-market opportunities, and my current role as an NAW Fellow, have created many relationships. I must expand my network to include more digital startups, emerging market innovations, and non-physical products. Everyone is welcome. My network is a growing community of next-generation thinkers and a coalition of the curious.

• Partners. I operate as a solopreneur and scale with partners. In addition to the NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence, I work with the Colorado Universities Innovation Council (CUIC), Modern Distribution Management (MDM), and industry associations. I am a Patron with The World Innovation Network (TWIN)–my leading source for world-class innovation ideas, inspiration, networking, and support. My partners are my window to practitioner realities, stakeholder imperatives, reader awareness, world-class thought leadership, publishing support, funding, and more.

What have I discovered so far?

I have started work for my new book. I’m testing concepts and asking for feedback. Already, several key questions have emerged:

• How will distribution evolve as products become smart? Soon, many products will be smart in the same way phones are. The trend toward smart products is already stressing distribution’s traditional structure and roles. In smart products, algorithms drive performance but are owned by the manufacturer and subject to updates, often without the buyer’s consent. Data exists on the product and in the cloud and faces a clouded future (pun intended!). The ownership of data is contested, with battles fought by manufacturers, customers, politicians, and activists. Think about Apple’s (currently on-hold) plans to scan data on iPhones without owners’ consent. “Right to repair” issues emerge as smart products are designed to work out of the box without the need for an owner’s manual or expert help. Service is achieved automatically or with amateur involvement by product users.

• Why do “future of work” innovations largely ignore jobs in the trades? Almost all conversations about a post-pandemic hybrid workforce are about office workers, not trade workers such as welders, electricians, plumbers, and truck drivers. Digital technology seems to be designed by people who work in offices for people who work in offices. Trade workers cannot do their jobs sitting behind a desk, looking at a computer. In the United States, a shortage of truckers is at the center of the current supply chain crisis. Media coverage of truckers and trucking is growing, but one wonders if more attention to innovations focused on the future of work for trade professions could have produced a ready, flexible, and productive driver force. Trade force issues are relevant for distribution because many manufacturers and distributors serve the trades and could be a natural source of innovations and public/private cooperation.

• How can distributors (or manufacturers) drive collaborative innovations? Innovative distributors complain that supplier incentives remain focused on encouraging them to load up on inventory, rather than invest in artificial intelligence, process automation, or customer experiences. Innovation-minded manufacturers complain that distributors argue against the benefits that could be achieved by sharing point-of-sale data, not in batch files but as live feeds for real-time analytics and machine learning. As value chain partners, distributors and manufacturers talk past each other or ignore each other’s plans and investments. This makes both parties more susceptible to disruption by non-traditional competitors and removes the potential for creating game-changing customer experiences.

How can you help?

I need your help. I’m on a mission, and distribution is my passion, but I need to cover research, editing, and publishing expenses while “keeping the lights on” at home. I need to expand my network and find new thought leadership. I need brainstorming to generate ideas and sounding boards to test solutions. Here are several ways you can help:

• Reach out for a conversation. If you have questions, ideas, or experiences to share, please reach out. Click here to schedule a call, or send me a note at mark.dancer@n4bi.com.

• Make introductions. Help me expand my network. Let me know to whom I should speak, and if possible, please make an introduction. If you need help to point me in the proper direction, let’s chat.

• Point out newsworthy events. If you see something, say something. I have lots of sources, and I scan them every day. But I don’t always have the perspective to notice what is noteworthy, especially from your perspective.

• Share thought leadership. Please share your experts and advisors, especially if their thoughts are available on a podcast or video, through a book, or covered in an article. It’s helpful to know the “why” that goes with your recommendation—why are the insights relevant, how have you applied them, and so forth?

• Comment on newsletter editions. As my community grows, I hope to have an active dialogue in the comment section of my newsletter. My newsletter platform, Substack, is on a mission to enable writing and provides an excellent platform for newsletters and podcasts, including a useful comment section. I will reply to everyone who leaves a thought or question.

• Engage my services. I am 100% focused on exploring and writing about B2B innovation and the future of distribution. I no longer accept channel strategy engagements unless the work is about doing channels differently. Instead, I offer keynotes and workshops for companies, associations, and other organizations. I serve on advisory boards for select innovators and startups, offer coaching, and contribute to special project initiatives.

• Last, but not least: Provide funding. I gratefully accept contributions from partners and patrons that support my work around B2B innovation and the future of distribution. Subscribing to my newsletter, and encouraging others, is an excellent start!

Join our innovation community (by asking questions)

Every week, I will publish findings here and suggest ideas for innovating B2B. Every edition asks questions to kickstart a conversation. Writing and conversations are essential for my book. I suggest all readers consider:

• What is the current and future purpose of distribution in your markets?

• How must distribution change? What is required for change to happen?

• What are the knowledge or resource gaps that are holding you back?

• Do my book concepts and plans align with your innovation needs?

As always, don’t be a stranger. Send me your answers! Share your thoughts in the comment section. If you prefer, click here to schedule a call or send me a note at mark.dancer@n4bi.com.