MSC Industrial Supply has complemented the launch of its MSC Direct e-commerce site with the MSC ControlPoint app, which allows customers to scan MSC labels or barcodes and add products to shopping carts. Customers can also place drop-shipment orders through the app.

Amazon will invest $15 billion this year on initiatives and tools to serve the third-party sellers that generated 58% of merchandise sales last year. The company said it has already introduced a slew of new tools, features and improvements this year to programs such as Fulfillment by Amazon.

Amazon's quarterly free cash flow is a more important metric than net profit because the latter reflects how Amazon is reinvesting profit, keeping its taxes low and has favorable payment terms with suppliers, Rani Molla writes. "Amazon's sales are also growing, meaning it's not in danger of reversing the free cash flow trend, which has been growing thanks to margins that have risen faster than capital expenditures," Molla writes.

Distributors should focus on untapped opportunities instead of constantly seeking to outperform competitors in well-worn markets, writes Bridget McCrea. It's also important to seek out process changes that can quickly lead to improvements, she writes.

Supply chain technology is valuable but cannot be considered separate from human involvement, according to this McKinsey analysis. Focusing on automation, visibility and collaboration can go a long way toward leveraging technology while maximizing what humans do, the authors write.

Some 85% of business-to-business enterprise buyers are more likely to reject a vendor if their first interaction isn't personalized, and just one in five companies are currently successful at creating personalized content at scale, per Seismic and Forrester Consulting. B2B marketers say the top three challenges to delivering personalization are, respectively: non-integrated sales assets; marketing and sales working in silos; and sales teams creating customized content that doesn't comply with brand messaging.

Empathy is the future, as leaders will have to focus on people even as technology continues to gain prominence, writes LaRae Quy. "When you perceive what the other person wants and needs, it gives you a step up on how to reach a win-win solution," Quy writes.

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