Wholesale distributors are challenged in managing increasing customer demands for a consistent and integrated transaction experience, while overseeing a global network of suppliers across multiple channels. Today, wholesale distributors struggle due to significant complexities such as:
- Limited visibility of supplier inventories and variable costs, leading to difficulties balancing inventory on-hand with customer satisfaction
- Inability to understand cost-to-serve with customer segmentation to identify profit drivers and the application of appropriate pricing strategies
- Complicated vendor cost recovery along with a lack of visibility to spending and supplier performance
Going forward, wholesale distributors will face increasing demands from customers and competitor threats from all sides. To succeed, they must deliver exceptional service and carve out a value-added, differentiated role in the supply chain.
How will Wholesale Distributors do thrive?
- Generate a superior customer experience by creating a unified and streamlined opportunity-to-cash process and a seamless multichannel experience.
- Create transparent supply chain operations by establishing flexible capacities in inventory and fulfillment.
- Minimize supplier risk by collaborating with the supply network, not only operationally, but strategically to drive competitive differentiation.
- Gain end-to-end margin visibility and control by establishing full visibility into cost recovery, spending, supplier performance and cost-to-serve.
By running simple, wholesale distributors are able to:
- Provide a better customer experience, optimize inventory, automate accurate pricing and streamline billing and collection activities.
- Collaborate with suppliers both operationally and strategically.
- Manage logistics, warehouses, and inventory to have the right stock available when customer needs it.
- Establish execution excellence in vendor cost recovery and rebates operations and gain a holistic view into the cost-to-serve through customer stratification.
Leading wholesale distributors are running simple to better carve out a value-added role in the supply chain and improve operations for a true competitive advantage. Consider Grainger, a Fortune 500 company and a member of Fortune magazine’s Most Admired Companies list. Grainger is North American’s premier broad line distributor of maintenance, repair, and operating products. Grainger helps customers save time and money by consolidating procurement of more than 900,000 products.
Grainger is just one example of a wholesale distributor integrating systems and business processes to run simpler. How will your
company compete and fuel profitable growth? Share your story with us about how your company is running simple to create an agile, insight-driven organization with simplified business processes across a global network of suppliers.
