Amazon has made deals with some of its publicly traded suppliers that include warrants allowing the e-commerce giant to eventually buy shares in the companies, possibly at below-market prices, according to regulatory filings. Amazon has also included warrants in deals with over 75 privately held suppliers, a source familiar with the deals said, and for some companies, the deals have made Amazon one of their biggest shareholders.

Ahold Delhaize's ADUSA Supply Chain network is providing more warehouse workers with robotic exosuits to reduce the risk of physical injury and strain. The battery-powered suits are made by Verve Motion, which says they don't restrict workers' movements.

Robotics and automation can increase warehouse productivity, while the internet of things and blockchain can improve supply chain visibility, writes Shannon Flynn. Meanwhile, machine learning can facilitate data analytics to improve performance, as well as monitor operations for cyberattacks, Flynn writes.

Business-to-business chief marketing officers are most challenged at the moment by developing fresh marketing strategies, outperforming the competition with thought leadership content and leading improvements to customer experience, writes DemandLab CEO Rhoan Morgan. Effectively budgeting during economic uncertainty and proving marketing's value are also current priorities, Morgan writes.

The ability to take personal responsibility is an overlooked trait shared by successful salespeople, writes Colleen Francis. When looking for new talent, "look for the sales rep that acknowledges any external factor that may have existed but shifts the focus back to themselves and their own ability to take ownership," Francis writes.

Good employees can be as valuable as cash reserves in a crisis, especially as the economy becomes increasingly knowledge-based, says Harvard Business School's Ethan Rouen, who has studied companies' responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses that kept workers will recover faster than those that laid people off, Rouen notes.

Leaders who are "diminishers" tend to believe they are the most important part of the team, but "multipliers" allow team members to contribute their own form of "genius" to the process for true collaboration, says Liz Wiseman. "This boss is someone so confident in their intelligence that they actually share it with others," she says.

The distribution industry has worked tirelessly over the past year to keep the economy moving while facing unprecedented challenges. As we look to turn the page on the pandemic, we are better together as an industry of 5.6 million people who collectively contribute $5.8 trillion annually to our country's GDP. Read Mike's column here.

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