AmerisourceBergen will work with UPS to transport pharmaceuticals, records and supplies via drone to medical campuses within the US. "Drone transport will improve speed and consistency of deliveries, enhance access to care, and create healthier communities," UPS said.

Lawson Products is focusing on incremental improvements and continued learning amid business challenges including labor shortages and an inflationary economic environment, says President and CEO Michael DeCata. "We face the same labor challenges everybody else does, but the labor challenges actually help us because our customers are facing acute labor shortages and our company enables them to perform far better and get more production ... out of their labor," DeCata says.

Distributors should focus on customer-requested features when moving to a new e-commerce platform and know how they'll measure success, writes Peter Lucas. From a technical standpoint, open APIs are preferable, while customization is not, he writes.

Hyper-personalized content is a must to deliver a superior business-to-business experience and can be achieved by maintaining consistent, memorable branding and adopting email automation to segment prospects to deliver the right content, Matt Shealy writes. Serve prospects with content that addresses their concerns based on their real-time digital actions and use social media to engage personally with customers, he recommends.

Organizations need to redefine what they consider "leadership" if they want more women in top roles, and they also need to promote more women to avoid tokenism, writes executive coach Joel Garfinkle. "When opportunities arise in your organization, don't let yourself or others make assumptions about women on their behalf," he writes.

On Thursday, Oct. 24, during the "Reboot the Real World: Beating Disruption through Human-Centric Innovations" webinar, Mark Dancer will explore how to win by being human, how to engage customers through shared interests and mutual advantage, and how to optimize benefits through intentional combinations of human and technology forces of change. This critical content is your first look at NAW's upcoming "Innovate to Dominate." Whether you attend live or prefer to watch on demand, please register. Sponsored by SAP.

"Innovate to Dominate: The 12th Edition in the Facing the Forces of Change Series" is less a report on trends and more of a roadmap for innovation. It helps distributors connect the dots between the forces of change and how distributors can change their business to capture opportunities ... and defend their business when necessary. The best innovations are about getting ahead instead of catching up. Save 10% per copy for a limited time using discount code FFC10 at checkout.

Real companies are finding real solutions and practical steps to attracting and keeping their best employees with "Optimizing Human Capital Development." You've got to have the right arsenal to keep your top performers and build your competitive advantage. Grounded in research and a data-driven approach with 18 leading distributors, this study includes 25 sets of talent best practices, 16 action steps and 62 real-world distributor examples. Read the table of contents and introduction.