Crescent Electric Supply has succeeded so far in its digital transformation efforts because of its emphasis on employee engagement and feedback, according to President and CEO Scott Teerlinck. One-on-one discussions, town halls and weekly updates have kept the lines of communication open and encouraged transparency, Teerlinck said.

Business-to-business marketplaces will have sales of $130 billion this year, a 130% increase from $56.5 billion in 2021, and marketplace sales will account for 6.9% of total B2B e-commerce sales, nearly twice last year's figure of 3.5%, according to Digital Commerce 360 projections. B2B marketplaces are also expected to expand 7.2 times as fast as total B2B e-commerce.

July's high of over 150 container ships waiting offshore at US and Canadian ports has dropped by 35%, although the 99 ships that were waiting on Friday were still about 90 more than typical pre-pandemic numbers. The East and Gulf coasts are more bogged down than the West Coast, with Savannah, Ga., reporting the biggest backlog at 29 ships.

Using safety sensors, letting workers collaborate with robots, automating high-risk tasks and using automated guiding vehicles as well as automatic storage and retrieval systems can make the workplace safer, writes Eric Whitley, director of smart manufacturing at L2L. Automation and systems integration can reduce worker downtime from injuries and help companies remain competitive, Whitley writes.

Some 71% of business-to-business marketers report that content marketing became more important in the last 12 months and the top challenge is creating content for each stage of the buying journey, according to a study by ON24 for Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs. Stephanie Stahl breaks down the lessons to be learned from the research, covering content marketing strategy, leadership support, budgets, technology, measurement and subject matter experts.

Distributors must first have the right technology to collect and analyze data if they want to use data insights to improve sales performance, according to Brian Friedle, vice president of business development at White Cup. Technology needs to be "something that your team can use and will use and adopt and change their behaviors around," Friedle said.

Minimize the disruption caused by know-it-alls who speak without listening to others by asking them to clarify their ideas and how they will help the company, and focus on leading the conversation in a more productive way, writes Dan Rockwell. Above all, control your own ego, because, Rockwell writes, "Trying to put a fathead in their place is self-defeating."

Bringing together seemingly disparate ideas and embracing "both/and" thinking rather than an "either/or" approach can lead to greater creativity and decisions that produce a win for all involved, write Wendy Smith, the faculty director at the Women's Leadership Initiative at the University of Delaware, and Marianne Lewis, the dean of Carl H. Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati. "Valuing opposing sides and seeking connections between them opens up creative and sustainable options," they write.

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