Distributors invited to Profit & Productivity Summit next week
The Distribution Strategy Group will host its Profit & Productivity Summit November 11–13 at the Marriott Chicago O’Hare. Distribution expert Mike Marks will present the opening keynote "Sales Productivity in the Age of AI."
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| Mike Marks delivers the opening keynote Monday, November 11, at 12:30 p.m. in Chicago. |
The conference is designed to help distributors thrive now and in the long term by adopting profit and productivity maximizing technologies and processes. Attendees will produce better results today while positioning their companies to benefit as consolidation accelerates across distribution.
Other takeaways include:
How to Optimize Supplier Rebates
Most distributors leave substantial money on the table here through miscategorized and duplicate SKUs, decentralized purchasing, poor rebate tracking, and poor processes and measurements. Are you getting everything you can from your rebate processes and agreements?
The Essential Role of Working Capital Management
Distributors have huge sums of capital tied up in inventory and accounts receivable. Emerging technologies allow you to raise service levels and inventory turns simultaneously and AI tools enable superior methods for collecting money more quickly and efficiently.
The Transformative Power of Managing “Cost to Serve”
Understanding the net profitability of your customers is vital. Some customers cost you more in service than they generate in profit due to frequent small orders, special delivery needs, and reserved inventory. Learn how to uncover these hidden costs and take action, turning unprofitable customer relationships into profit generators.
Driving Profits through Strategic Purchasing
Decentralized purchasing and failure to leverage strategic buying agreements can drive duplicate SKUs, dead stock, incorrect costs, and other silent profit killers. Discover the tools and practices that top distributors use to drive better purchasing and eliminate waste—creating significant profit improvements without raising prices.
Quote and Order Automation
Your team no longer needs to spend hours, days or weeks evaluating quotes, whether they come in as spreadsheets with thousands of SKUs or handwritten requests on the back of a napkin. Exciting new productivity-enhancing technologies do this work automatically, and can infer the proper SKUs from descriptions while giving you the control you want to review quotes before they’re sent back to customers.
Sales Productivity
As Mike Marks says, the traditional distribution role –a generalist field sales rep on commissions with some support from inside sales or customer service – just doesn’t work for many companies and with many customers. Generational change, a flood of technical and product data, enhanced communications and AI technologies and other developments have diminished the ability for outside reps to add value. Knowing where and how to deploy your reps – and to augment them with cheaper resources – can drive sales productivity to new levels.
Effective Approaches to Utilizing Marketing Co-op
Many distributors view marketing co-op as a minor, difficult-to-tap opportunity. However, when utilized correctly, marketing co-op can become a major profit driver. Aligning your marketing with key suppliers and fully engaging your supplier base in co-op programs can not only fund better marketing but also boost sales. You’ll learn how to unlock the full potential of co-op, creating a win-win scenario for profitability and growth.
How to Optimize Gross Margin the Right Way
Optimizing gross margin is still important but it’s essential to understand when and how to increase prices without costing you sales or customer satisfaction. Choosing to price correctly and optimally based on customers, situations and products will allow you to increase your gross margins in ways that let you retain wallet and market share.
Learn more and register here.
INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY MAGAZINE
The November/December issue of Industrial Supply magazine features an in-depth cover story about Kimball Midwest. Plus, we're featuring articles by contributing writers Dirk Beveridge, Frank Hurtte, and Mike Marks, as well as interviews with numerous product and distribution industry experts.
