Grainger reported $366 million in first-quarter net profit on sales of $3.65 billion, both up from a year earlier. The distributor credited the growth to the strength of its High-Touch Solutions and Endless Assortment segments.
Applied Industrial Technologies earned $68 million in its fiscal third quarter, a 21.8% year-over-year increase. Quarterly sales increased by 16.6%, to $981 million, with both business segments reporting gains.
Third-party logistics companies have the upper hand with shippers, so the latter should focus on building trust, evaluating technological compatibility and using new guidelines for segmentation, writes Matthew Beckett, senior director analyst at Gartner. "[S]hippers realize that a good relationship with their 3PL is key to a good experience for their customers," Beckett writes.
Warehouse operators who want to add robots should first evaluate the function and setting of the technology, as well as the available infrastructure, industry experts say. Digital twinning can also help identify the best place for robotics, says Sridhar Solur, chief product officer and general manager of mobile robotics for Berkshire Grey.
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Business-to-business sales occur across 10 channels, or double the number seen just five years ago, and hybrid selling is quickly emerging as a leading strategy, according to this McKinsey analysis. "More than just a remote call center with salespeople working out of their home offices, hybrid selling is a flexible, scalable -- and frequently more profitable -- way to reach buyers," the authors write.
Business-to-business buyers say the most helpful types of videos when making purchase decisions are those that educate them on products or services, help them solve or understand problems and show what other customers say about services or products, according to a study by Brightcove and Ascend2. The top types of videos watched by B2B buyers in the past three months are product reviews and demos, tutorials and live videos.
Good business stories engage with the audience's emotions and imagination, and one way to do that is when the speaker uses their voice, body and metaphor to paint a verbal picture, writes Brian Moriarty, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. "Even in virtual environments, body language is critical, with those elements visible on the screen becoming elevated in their relative importance," Moriarty writes.
If you are looking for insights on creating and building your marketplace strategy, NAW offers this free webinar for distribution leaders on Marketplace Disruption and Strategic Response on Thursday, May 12, 2022. You will hear from Ian Heller, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Distribution Strategy Group, and Alex Moazed, founder and CEO of Applico. These two Thought Leaders along with a panel of distributors, will discuss their own marketplace strategies and share the business decisions that led to their specific strategies. Be sure to register today!
The NAW Billion Dollar Company Roundtables are an exclusive community of thought leaders from Billion Dollar distribution enterprises who congregate to network with non-competing peers in multiple lines of trade on key issues. The companies invited into this community are from distribution firms at or above $1 billion in annual sales. Register today!
