Restaurants are recovering quickly from the pandemic, with business up from two years ago and customers willing to absorb price increases, says Sysco CEO Kevin Hourican. However, shortages of cooking oils and poultry are affecting the industry.
Walmart will sell the e-commerce technology it created for customers to be able to buy items online and pay in-store to small and midsize retailers. The company will offer the services through a cloud-based subscription after partnering with Adobe.
Over-the-road trucking, air cargo operations and ocean shipping can all benefit from transportation visibility technology, writes Chris Cunnane. Such platforms can provide more accurate arrival estimates, especially with blockchain and other technologies being added.
Sending fake phishing emails to see if employees can be tricked is likely counterproductive, argues systems administrator Scott Matteson. CEO Sai Venkataraman of SecurityAdvisor says such "shame culture" tactics tend to position "the internal IT teams negatively in the eyes of the organization's employees, making it more challenging to get people on board with strategic initiatives."
A lack of brand awareness is a bigger problem for business-to-business companies, particularly smaller brands, than brand rejection, according to research by LinkedIn's The B2B Institute and the University of South Australia's Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. "Brands should try to understand, in an objective way, how well-known they really are and what their total addressable market is for a specific category," says The B2B Institute's Jann Martin Schwarz.
Business-to-business companies must adapt to a digital world by investing in e-commerce, developing brand awareness on social and creating partnerships with influential enterprises, writes Kinex Media cofounder Karan Sharma. Ensure technology investments such as e-commerce websites have the capacity to scale, incorporate website analytics and reporting features, and pay attention to search engine optimization, Sharma advises.
Researchers are increasingly persuaded that verbal praise is good, as recipients enjoy receiving compliments and are more likely to give compliments in turn. One challenge is that people feel awkward giving compliments and worry about a negative reaction.
Executives usually display one of five archetypes when it comes to customer engagement, with nearly half of executives going to extremes of disengagement or rogue interactions. The customer-focused "growth champion" archetype was found to drive the highest annual sales and profit growth, compounded over five years, with growth champions known as "responsive to both their customers and their own account managers," write Christoph Senn and Noel Capon.
According to Benj Cohen, entrepreneur of artificial intelligence technology and third-generation distributor "The pandemic brought with it a rise in digital B2B purchasing. Boundaries were broken down and expectations were removed as businesses began making purchases like consumers: quickly and conveniently from their home computers." Read his post.
Through the education alliance between the NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence and Texas A&M University's Industrial Distribution Program, NAW offers this cutting-edge educational program that is customized to distributors. Learn more.
Rate tier changes and new fee increases are the biggest in a decade to costs U.S. businesses pay to accept credit cards. Understanding the fees your business pays has never been more important. Learn how in the B2B A/R Update "Card Brands Make Good on Interchange Fee Increases for B2B Card-Not-Present Transactions."
