Core & Main to purchase W.Va. precast concrete supplier | Wholesale inventories drop in April as trade deficit grows | Generative AI shows promise in guiding supply chains
Core & Main reached a deal to buy West Virginia-based precast concrete, pipe and drainage material supplier Foster Supply, which has seven locations in its home state, Kentucky and Tennessee. "Bringing the Foster Supply team into Core & Main will allow us to combine our collective expertise and differentiated product and service offerings to better meet the needs of our waterworks and geosynthetics customers," said Core & Main CEO Steve LeClair.
Wholesale inventories fell 0.2% in April while retail inventories increased 0.2% from the previous month, according to an early estimate. The Census Bureau reported the trade gap in goods increased by 17% to reach a six-month high due to declining exports and a recovery in imports.
Generative artificial intelligence has many potential applications in the logistics industry, including guiding supply chains, but there are potential pitfalls and users must ask the right questions, pay attention to issues that matter and exercise judgment, writes Polly Mitchell-Guthrie, vice president of industry outreach and thought leadership at software firm Kinaxis. The technology should be used to relieve planners of tedious decisions, but the most important decisions still require human leadership, Mitchell-Guthrie writes.
Refrigerated trucking is fragmented and highly competitive, and food and beverage makers benefit from the use of data and analytics to benchmark, negotiate and manage cold shipping, writes Samuel Parker of DAT Freight & Analytics. Managing costs and ensuring product safety and on-time delivery are critical for food and beverage manufacturers and distributors, and data and analytics can position companies to ensure the best carriers and technology are being used to meet all three benchmarks, Parker writes.
Hyundai showcased its Xcient Class 8 tractor powered by hydrogen fuel cells at the ACT Expo in Anaheim, Calif. The Port of Oakland in Oakland, Calif., ordered 30 Xcients in 2021, and the tractor has been driven more than 4 million miles by partners in Germany, Israel, New Zealand, South Korea and Switzerland.
Special pricing agreements can aid manufacturers and distributors by providing flexibility to maintain relationships that help both parties succeed, but such agreements must be carefully crafted, writes Mo Barsema, an industry principal at business-to-business rebate management software firm Enable. Barsema outlines various considerations for manufacturers and distributors as the parties consider SPAs and details the importance of data in implementing and tracking the deals.
Marcus Sheridan, marketing expert and global keynote speaker, talks about why establishing trust with prospects should be the top priority for business-to-business marketers and offers advice on how to engage sales-averse audiences through content. Sheridan talks about how to disarm prospects with radical honesty and why short vertical video is a B2B marketer's best friend.
If the people you manage go to a workshop and are asked their feelings about their leader, will they say, "This manager served us, and in return, we moved mountains," like one workshop attendee told leadership coach Art Petty? That's the sign of a professional with "the best characteristics of both leaders and managers ... who can inspire, motivate, teach, coach and bring out the best in our people as the world and technology shift in front of us, Petty writes.
