Foodservice distributor US Foods has launched a program to help restaurant operators create their own virtual concepts. The US Foods Ghost Kitchens program will use tech tools to identify potentially profitable concepts, help with creating recipes and optimizing menus, digital marketing help, and tips for getting up and running quickly.

Fastenal has reached an agreement with the National Hockey League to provide teams with products for facilities maintenance, repair and operations. Fastenal will sell to NHL teams through sales representatives and online.

With its e-commerce sales soaring, Walmart is now turning its attention to serving and retaining the online customer base it has been building, executives said during Tuesday's earnings call. CEO Doug McMillon also said initial results from testing of the Walmart+ subscription service have been positive, but did not say when the new membership program would launch or how much it would cost shoppers who sign up.

Demand for warehouses and distribution centers could grow by another 400 million square feet as more people shop online during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report from Prologis.

LiveRamp's Pieter De Temmerman answers key data questions for business-to-business marketers, spanning data platforms, IP targeting, campaign performance, live event budgets and pandemic uncertainty. He explains the importance of being able to match a prospect's business persona with their consumer persona as remote working continues, and explains why "the most successful B2B marketers we see are the ones who focus on and fortify relationships with their sales leaders."

App Annie reports that individuals increased daily mobile device usage by 20% during the first half of the year, compared with 2019, for a total 1.6 trillion hours, while brands followed suit by increasing mobile ads by 70%. App Annie's Lexi Sydow said the pandemic spurred mobile usage by two to three years and predicts "businesses who prioritize mobile will outpace competitors, as mobile represents a significant driver of revenue growth for businesses."

A transformation project is most likely to succeed if the process begins with a clear definition of the problems to be solved, writes Edwin Bosso of Myrtle Consulting Group. Bosso shares four other guidelines for keeping the project within a manageable scope, among them creating a list of potential solutions.

Distributors: NAW is working with Distribution Strategy Group to get input from distributors' customers on a range of disruptive technologies: AI, 3D Printing, blockchain and more. Here is how you can help: Please send a brief survey to your customers -- we want input directly from purchasing professionals and other business buyers. We need to complete this research as quickly as possible, so please email your customers ASAP. You may access the NAW survey link here, and we've also included some text you can use to communicate with your customers. Thank you!

AI expert Benj Cohen explains what CDPs are and how distributors can use them to leverage their most valuable resource, customer data, to drive huge growth. He writes, "CDPs are an extremely effective tool for businesses because they bundle multiple complex processes into the same solution. CDPs not only give distributors a way to generate and collect customer data, but they also allow distributors to distill this information into smart actions and automatically execute those actions." Read his post.

Register now for NAW's September 24 live webinar, "How Distributor Customers Will Use Technologies From Their Suppliers and Who Is Winning." Leading technology companies are offering customers new ways of ordering. Retailers and distributors are using AI-enabled business intelligence to understand customer needs better and are applying autonomous vehicles, including drones, for deliveries. Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein will delve into how important all of this is to customers and whether distributors need to build technological capabilities to remain competitive.