United Natural Foods recently issued its 12th annual Better for All report detailing the wholesaler-distributor's impact in nine areas -- including diversity, equity and inclusion, climate action, and governance. "While we are proud of the progress we have made, we recognize that in many ways we are just at the beginning of our journey and that there is much more to be done," said UNFI CEO Sandy Douglas.

Amazon is opening its Buy with Prime program to all US merchants by the end of January, allowing them to offer Prime benefits, including free two-day shipping. The service initially started with a select group of sellers, but the e-commerce giant is expanding the program as an additional revenue source and a way to increase competition with Shopify and BigCommerce.

Business-to-business customers in several industries, including electrical, HVAC, plumbing and general contracting, are embracing e-commerce, according to a recent survey of 500 sellers by Billtrust. "While this shift to online was happening at a steady pace prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis' onset massively accelerated it," the report says.

While the distribution industry is becoming more data-centric, too many companies are mired in descriptive and predictive analytics, SPARXiQ CEO David Bauders writes. Bauders offers five questions companies should ask to help move their data into the phase of prescriptive analytics, which can "guide front-line employees straight to the prioritized decisions and actions that will predictably improve business impact."

Inbound containers at ports decreased 1.3% in December from the level in November, closing out a year in which container imports declined 2.8% compared with 2021, according to Descartes Datamyne. Seaborne import volume in December reached the lowest level since June 2020 and was down 19.3% compared with December 2021.

A strong theme that resonates is imperative whether your sales team kickoff meeting is in person, virtual or hybrid, writes Andy Springer. Sales managers can tap seven savvy tactics, such as tackling the education aspect before the meeting, and should include an actionable mission and frequent reinforcement, Springer notes.

Technological advances and the need for efficient budgets will drive marketers to increase their use of machine learning and artificial intelligence from 8.6% of work in 2022 to 22.9% by 2026, a Deloitte CMO survey found. While 2022 was the year for metaverse and nonfungible token trials, McCann Worldgroup executive Elav Horwitz predicts "2023 is going to be more about realism and solving real issues."

Mandating employee behavior rarely works, writes Liz Kislik, who recommends leaders involve their teams in decisions, question their own thinking or seek another perspective and empower managers to work with employees individually to accommodate their needs. "Otherwise, you won't have the shared goals that motivate people to comply with some of the strictures and structures that they might not prefer," Kislik writes.

Teaching her son how to play cards made Kristin Hendrix realize that while transparency is great, often it's often best to keep some of your plans and ambitions close to your chest until you know you can trust those around you. Hendrix outlines a system to use to identify risks and when we should move with more caution.