From "Midwest nice" to the growing potential of artificial intelligence in the grocery industry, Lori Raya, chief merchandising and marketing officer of SpartanNash, discusses her insights and inspirations after more than 30 years in the business. Separately, SpartanNash reported higher net sales for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 28, although food distribution and military distribution net sales declined from a year earlier.
Stop Wasting Time on False Positives Learn how to streamline global trade with these 6 Best Practices to Improve Compliance with a Restricted Party Screening Solution. Download the whitepaper now!
Distributors need to stand out beyond the scope of price and products to stay competitive, says Andrew Horvath, co-leader of Alexander Group's distribution practice. Carefully identifying target markets to pinpoint how to better serve them and avoiding giving away value-added services to everyone can strengthen a business, he says.
State of the Wholesale Supply Chain Industry in 2020 The wholesale supply chain industry continues to look for ways to solve challenges around predicting shifting consumer preferences, volatility with suppliers and long lead times, and e-commerce growth that's increasing price transparency. Despite these obstacles, the industry collectively posted year-over-year sales growth of 8% in 2019, similar to the prior year. Get the key findings for Blue Ridge's wholesale supply chain industry 2020 survey.
An infographic from CoSchedule displays the optimal times to post content on social media by business category and platform. For example, the best times for business-to-business brands to post on Facebook are 9 a.m. and between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., and the most effective times for software companies on Twitter are 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Jonathan Crowl outlines key highlights from a Skyword report regarding the lifespan of content, noting business-to-business content hits its top organic search results around two months after being posted. He describes how to boost the long-term value of content based on this insight, including posting content regularly enough to always have articles or blogs within the peak window and refreshing evergreen content with recent data.
You're ready for leadership if you're comfortable confronting people about their performance, are decisive and want to help people succeed, writes Wally Bock. Try out a leadership role on a project or at a nonprofit before committing to a full-time role.
The time has come to address your concerns about shrinking margins by upping your game on pricing decisions. If you keep doing more with less, you'll soon be doing everything with nothing. The issue of margin erosion will never end if you don't get creative -- first with your pricing methods and second with your value proposition. If you want to leverage pricing optimization best practices that are rooted in sound analytics, start by reading "Pricing Optimization."
"Customer Stratification: Best Practices for Boosting Profitability" is a first-of-its-kind study that provides groundbreaking research, best practices from 68 real wholesaler-distributors and 20 practical action steps ready to implement. Rather than focus on sales force communication, this cutting-edge research focuses on customer relationships and the value customers provide to distributors. It looks at four customer stratification dimensions: buying power, customer loyalty, profitability and cost-to-serve. Order now.
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 between $100 million up to a billion in annual sales. You'll experience the best networking in the industry, share ideas and benchmark with your C-suite peers in distribution -- who aren't competitors. Register today.
