What's Coming in Distribution
Tom Gale, President — MDM Analytics
• competitive strategy • 2020 Vision • market intelligence • distribution management best practices • profit strategy • expert interview • industry perspective • MDM • Wholesale Distribution Industry • new opportunities for distribution industry • distribution industry technology
I recently sat down with Tom Gale, the president of Gale Media and the owner of MDM Newsletter, to discuss the future of the market. I've followed MDM over the past decade and it's informed me a great deal about where the market's been as well as where it's going. Tom spends a lot of time out on the road talking to other professionals, being with the associations, and he really has one of the absolute best perspectives on what's going on in the market. I specifically wanted to get Tom's insights and predictions on what will happen in the market over the next five years.
"The recession of 2008-2009 was a real accelerator in a lot of ways," Tom noted. Competitive advantage is more important than ever and one of the areas where "it's had really an impact is from a technology standpoint. We are in an unprecedented technological revolution, and the cost of processing power and technology capability have absolutely just compressed in such a short amount of time." Something like talent also continues to be important, but "one of the real critical shifts taking place is that companies are more willing to take a hard look at changing the business model that worked ten years ago and identifying what the business model is going to look like five years from now."
"Another key shift has been the change from a purely sales-oriented focus to the profitability focus," Tom continues. This allows companies to get a better sense of where they're going compared to other "companies that are still sales-focused and using rearview metrics in terms of how they measure and set goals."
"Instead of just shot-gunning territories," Tom notes, "companies have their salespeople getting better information about what's really happening on the frontlines and feeding it back into a system where the company is constantly improving its internal data about what the market really looks like. The more clear the picture, the better those companies are going to be able to really focus those resources and the limited salespeople and talent that they have."
Companies have finite resources, they can't focus on everything. Companies need to able to turn their resources, their priorities, their programs, their personnel into the things that are absolutely most productive and are most likely to have a big future. Companies need to recognize that the market is different, the business is different, and the place they're operating in is different. As such, companies need to be continually adapting to market conditions. This has led to remarkable paradoxical shifts where companies are having hundreds fewer accounts that they're servicing, gaining profit by basically shedding the cost structure that goes along with the accounts that don't pay, and putting all of their resources on the ones that do.
For more information about Tom Gale, visit: www.mdmanalytics.com