A liquor shortage last November in Michigan, precipitated by Republic National Distributing's transition to a new warehouse, was corrected within about two months by a bold move undertaken by Joe Gigliotti, region president of control states for the company, which is the state's biggest liquor distributor. The company tossed roughly three days' worth of orders, temporarily halted deliveries and paid overtime to allow itself to catch up, a costly plan that was "absolutely" the right call, says Gigliotti.

McKesson reported $191 million in earnings on $59.1 billion in revenue for the fiscal third quarter. Revenue was up 5% from a year earlier.

Anixter International reported higher revenue and profit for the fourth quarter and the full fiscal year. Its Network & Security Solutions unit increased quarterly sales by 7.7% year over year.

The coronavirus could hamper the movement of goods for three to six months as companies close factories, stores and offices in China and take other precautions to prevent the spread of the illness, according to Resilinc CEO Bindiya Vakil. She expects the biggest impacts on industries including aerospace, automotive, consumer goods and electronics.

B2B marketing campaigns today rely on metrics and measurements that can make assessing results difficult, writes Steve Olenski of Oracle. Sticking to your brand voice and streamlining the metrics used to measure performance are two of the steps he suggests for reducing complexity.

This infographic from Grazitti Interactive displays benchmarks, trends and budgets for business-to-business content marketing this year. Among the many insights are that 66% of B2B marketers prioritize their audience's information needs over company messaging and the top three formats are, in order, social content, blogs or short articles and email newsletters.

Executives need peers and coaches they can confide in, writes Fred Engelfried, who struggled with this problem when he led a manufacturer. A leadership team is there to solve business problems, but CEOs need other people around them for discussion, he argues.

To assist your leading-edge company in transforming your social selling practices, the NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence and Texas A&M University are holding a third kickoff meeting on Oct. 1 for the brand-new "Digitizing the Sales Process" consortium. If your company wants to be on the cutting-edge of creating and implementing a digital selling strategy that guides your organization and ensures that technologies are aligned with your other business processes, please register for this consortium now! To learn more, email NAW's Patricia A. Lilly.

Designed for C-suite executives, these roundtables provide actionable strategies and best practices that will increase your company's competitive advantage. Member companies belonging to this community are from distribution firms that exceed $1 billion in annual sales. Participating in this 24-hour, results-focused business meeting is one of the best ways to learn from your C-suite peers in distribution -- who aren't competitors! Register today.

Mark Dancer, NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence Fellow, says, "As distributors rush to put up e-commerce platforms that can sell anywhere and anytime without human interaction, they are reinventing their business as one that is digital, virtual and data-driven. But, like a retail mall decimated by online shopping, distributors have failed to reposition their most crucial core offering." Read his blog post. To stay in the know every week, sign up for the NAW Blog: Distributing Ideas.