June 13,
2007 - Distribution Channel Commentary (DCC) # 99
Greetings:
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TOPICS:
1.
THEMATIC
QUOTES
2.
RETHINKING
BUSINESS MODELS AND CHANGING
3.
(WHOLESALE) PRIVATE LABEL CONFERENCE – AUG.
7-9th
1.
THEMATIC
QUOTES
“Life gets better every year!”
(What my Dad, who is 86 today
and still active in every way, told me when he was turning 40 and I was 11 in
response to my question of: “Isn’t getting old kind of a drag?”)
“In truth, there is no such
thing as a growth industry. There are only companies organized and operated to
create and capitalize on growth opportunities.”
Ted Levitt
“Leading companies will succeed not by battling competitors, but by
creating “blue oceans” of uncontested market space ripe for growth. Such
strategic moves - termed “value innovation” - create powerful leaps in value
for both the firm and its buyers, rendering rivals obsolete and unleashing new
demand.” Kim and Mauborgne (authors
of “Blue Ocean Strategy”)
“The role of the devil's
advocate is nearly universal in business today. It allows individuals to step
outside themselves and raise questions and concerns that effectively kill new
projects and ideas, while claiming no personal responsibility.” Tom
Kelley (author of “10 Faces Of Innovation”)
2.
RETHINKING
BUSINESS MODELS
Most mature businesses spend
most of their resources on fine-tuning their past which includes strategic
business assumptions and practices that are quite outdated. Because these firms
don’t specifically know what their core value proposition is for their core,
profitable customers within their most important customer niche(s), they can’t
continuously: measure, improve, sell and brand that value proposition. Because
they are, therefore, not different enough from too many other competitors, they
all compete on being efficient at past practices and buying commodities lower
to then sell them lower.
Many companies that have used
our “High Performance..” DVD training system (see center of Merrifield.com
homepage) to find out how to zero in on their core knowledge needs don’t follow
the prescriptive solutions in the training system, because their corporate
culture and fabric-of-being won’t let change happen. I also know, as a board
member of several distribution companies, that when the important 3-to-15
year-time-horizon questions are asked, operational managers who are consumed
with daily transactional realities keep postponing thinking and work on system
solutions for long-term gain. They, instead, are looking for quick-relief fixes
for today’s pains.
So, I keep working on the living
edge of good intentions to find new ways for CEOs to enable the corporate
changes that they know –more or less- need to happen to not only survive, but
thrive. And, I keep looking for new ways to package “quick-fixes” for immediate
pain that are also first-steps towards longer-term strategic solutions. The
entire “5-5-5 marketing kit” on our
site is an example of this quick-fix and
strategic journey approach. And, once or twice a year, I get actively engage
with a client as a full-time, part-time “coach” to help clients do the
transformations that they know must happen.
As food for thought, on the
topic of “rethinking your business model” I can offer the following posted
material at www.merrifield.com: a new
slide show entitled: “Blue Ocean Business (Re) Modeling Tools”
3. (WHOLESALE)
PRIVATE LABEL CONFERENCE – AUG. 7-9, 2007; Midland, Michigan
A colleague of mine, Bill Wade, of Wade Partners, Inc. is
a distribution channel consultant who has spent most of his career in the
aftermarket parts channels for both truck and auto parts. He is the driving
force behind organizing a first-time-ever conference open to all channel
players – manufacturers, wholesalers, buying groups, reps, etc – from all
channels who are interested in re-thinking their private label strategies. The
conference will run, if we have enough participants from Tuesday, August 7th
at 1pm through Thursday at noon at a golf and conference center resort in the
Midland, Michigan area.
Bill, I, and other distribution consultants who I have
been in touch with are surprised at:
·
How fast private label sourcing and selling has
taken off in all types of distribution channels since 2001.
·
How fast pricing and margins have collapsed on many
of these items in many channels.
·
And, how un-thought-out the source-and-sell firms
have been about their longer-term thinking for these private label “programs”.
If you haven’t read my article on “Global Trends in
Private Label Products”, it is posted in the right hand column of our homepage.
Make sure you scroll to the bottom to read and think about the questions that I
ask at the end of the article.
If you would like to send a team of people to the
conference, but have concerns about who else might be there in your channel,
contact Bill Wade directly and inquire. He is offering no channel exclusives to
people in the aftermarket truck and auto parts channels, but you may well be
the only company interested and attending from your particular channel. And,
even if others from your channel may attend, we can always present your issues
in a disguised case study format that you approve before it is presented.
The conference is intended to allow all participants to
get a robust view of what is and isn’t working across a variety of channels and
to initiate contacts and relationships that can continue to be beneficial. You
can contact Bill in the Chicago area at 847-760-0067 or bwade@wade-partners.com. Don’t be
bashful about contacting him, he’s a really great guy!
Best for now,
Bruce
