Yesterday, I was on an 8:00 am Monday morning zoom calls with Industrial Supply Association (ISA) member Precision where Mark Jackmore and I were reviewing the content we are presenting on our webcast this week. Now, Monday morning 8AM zoom calls can be interesting, as the weekly coffee intake is just starting for everyone on the call, so I was interested to see where the … [Read more...] about Part 2 – Category Management is a big opportunity for Industrial Channel Leaders
insights
Pentagon Pricing Series – Part 1 – Sell Side is everything
For the past number of months, David Gordon and I have been talking non-stop about pricing and have been busy helping many Industrial distributors and manufacturers with their “buy side” and “sell side” programs. As a former pricing leader for two of the largest distributors in North America, I have been remiss in writing as much as we should about buy-side and sell-side … [Read more...] about Pentagon Pricing Series – Part 1 – Sell Side is everything
Interesting Conversation with ISA Member -Watson Gloves
Earlier this month, I did a channel presentation where we shared our direct distributor and end customer research for the Watson Gloves team at their 2025 AGM event. What struck David Gordon and I was how engaged the Watson team was, and the questions they had for us after the session were top- notch. That great meeting started an idea for us to highlight more ISA member … [Read more...] about Interesting Conversation with ISA Member -Watson Gloves
Fastenal Sales Segmentation Insights – Opinion
It is unusual for a large B2B publicly traded distributor to share details at the level Fastenal has recently provided during their Investor Day, their quarterly results, and annual report. In this column we will cover Fastenal's recent releases on Sales, Customer Segmentation, and their Focus 40 program. We follow them closely on Industrial Supply Trends as they are one of … [Read more...] about Fastenal Sales Segmentation Insights – Opinion
ISA25 Recap – Headwinds, Tailwinds, and Uncertainty
ISA 25 last week (March 31- April 2nd) in Nashville brought together close to 700 Industrial Channel Leaders to the annual meeting to meet in person. I really enjoy this ISA industry event as it brings together Manufacturers, Distributors and Manufacturer Representative Firms at one meeting together. For other key B2B channels like electrical, HVACR, Automation, Power … [Read more...] about ISA25 Recap – Headwinds, Tailwinds, and Uncertainty
What were the hot topics at ISA25 this year?
ISA 25 is wrapping up today and the packed agenda over the three days was wrapped up by great presentations by NAW's Brian Wild and ITR economics. As expected, the hot topic was TARIFFFFS... and the impacts of current, potential, and future tariffs. It was great have National Association of Wholesaler leader Brian Wild -Chief Government Officer (2) Brian Wild | LinkedIn take a … [Read more...] about What were the hot topics at ISA25 this year?
Part 2 – Fastenal Investor Day Insights – Opinion
Fastenal Investor Day Slide - March 13, 2025 It is unusual for a large B2B publicly traded distributor to share details at the level Fastenal did on their Customer Segmentation metrics recently. In this analysis of Fastenal's Investor Day presentation, I wanted to focus on the customer segmentation part of the presentation and on the very large end of the distribution … [Read more...] about Part 2 – Fastenal Investor Day Insights – Opinion
IST Update – Impact of Tariffs on Ship and Debit (SPA) Programs
When tariffs were announced in February, we cautioned that the best strategy for distributors was to focus on their processes so that they could facilitate passing through the price increases. Part of our guidance was to automate implementation of price increases, review T&Cs for quotes, contracts, and SPAs, and to communicate. In fact, back in December we shared with a … [Read more...] about IST Update – Impact of Tariffs on Ship and Debit (SPA) Programs
Industrial Supply Trends Economic Snapshot – Q1 2025
This is the inaugural article for a series in ISA focusing on the top industries and products for industrial supply distributors from Kevin Coleman our collegue at Channel Marketing Group. Kevin has 30 years experience leading Market Intelligence teams for leading manufacturers such as Avaya, Philips Lighting, and Signify. Kevin will each quarter, profile a different … [Read more...] about Industrial Supply Trends Economic Snapshot – Q1 2025
Copper, Steel, China and More About Tariffs
This month has been an interesting one as a content provider for the Industrial Channel and keeping up with the Tariff news has been a daily occurrence. We published a column in our sister ElectricalTrends.com publication this week that we wanted to share with our Industrial Supply Trends Readers. There are some tariffs we know (China, imported steel and aluminum) and then … [Read more...] about Copper, Steel, China and More About Tariffs
