Two major deals at the end of 2021 ensured the year would end with a bang. Lawson Products, Gexpro Services and Test Equity joined forces, and Motion Industries acquired Kaman Distribution Group.

Do these deals signal a renewed round of mergers and acquisitions in the distribution industry? Our hosts Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein reviewed these big deals and others. They also discussed what may be coming in 2022 and what it means for your business.

Can distributors give customers new reasons to visit physical stores? Mark Dancer thinks so. On this episode of The Wholesale Change Show Dancer joined our hosts Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein to share how he thinks B2B innovators can reimagine physical stores and other real-world spaces to create new value for customers and open a new front in the war against disruptors.

How companies like Amazon Business, Berkshire eSupply & Varis are changing the game. For decades, customers have turned to distributors to meet their everyday needs and source hard-to-find products. Distributors used their own inventories, supplier sourcing and master distributors to give customers access to an endless array of products.

But now, marketplaces have moved that endless assortment right in front of the customer. This has changed the dynamics for distributors and even more for master distributors.

Wholesale Change show hosts Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein discuss what this means, using companies like Amazon Business, Berkshire eSupply and Varis as examples.

ADI, a leading global wholesale distributor of security, AV and low-voltage products with 2020 revenues of $3 billion, embarked on a significant digital transformation over the past several years. This digital transformation included integrated sales effectiveness initiatives that created significant sales efficiencies during a strong growth period. Stu Tisdale, Vice President of Global Strategy and Commercial, has been instrumental in driving ADI’s digital transformation initiatives including touchless ordering, analytics, AI/ML, integration of offline and online, and more. Our Wholesale Change hosts and Tisdale discuss ADI’s remarkable journey.

What keeps Jennifer Murphy, President of NetPlus Alliance, up at night in a time of consolidation and disruption? The independent distributor’s relevance. NetPlus Alliance is a buying group focused on helping its distributor members succeed. To her, it’s critical that NetPlus accomplishes this mission. Join our Wholesale Change hosts and Murphy on Nov. 10 as they talk about the evolution of buying groups and the role they play in supporting distributors in today’s market.

Product shortages, supply-chain delays, hard-to-find labor – what are the best practices in navigating through the current supply chain madness?

On this episode of The Wholesale Change Show we talked with two experts about what you should do to manage these problems.

Our guests are Bruce Strahan, President of operations strategy consultant Argon & Co., and Helgi Leja from Distribution Performance Solutions.

Chuck Cohen, the Managing Director of Benco, the nation’s largest independent dental product distributor, believes that top notch IT and analytics are essential to create competitive advantage in this decade and beyond. Together with his team, he’s putting his money where his mouth is by changing every foundational IT system in the company. The result of this transformation will be a better online and offline customer and employee experience, as well as better efficiencies and effectiveness for Benco. Tune in to hear from this visionary leader about how they came to the decision and how the journey is going.

In this episode we spoke with Barry Litwin, CEO of Global Industrial, a $1B distributor focusing on small and midsize businesses. In less than two years, Barry has rebranded the parent company, grown the share price about 70% and differentiated and developed an exciting strategy to drive future growth.

We asked Barry about his career, what he’s learned along the way and how he’s applying this experience at Global Industrial. He talks about how Global differentiates from other distributors as well as disruptors. Barry also talked about the company’s approach to combining its sales, phone and digital channels to drive success.

The rumors aren’t true. The B2B sales rep still has a long life ahead despite the (not completely true) stories that Millennials and Gen Z don’t want to meet with them. It’s misleading to declare sales reps are over; the value of the sales rep depends on the nature of the relationship and the complexity of the products and services being sold. In this episode of Wholesale Change Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein talked about how conversations around the role of the sale rep today need to go beyond just blaming the next generation.

Julie Copeland, CEO of 75-year-old safety distributor Arbill, joined Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein to take a closer look at how the PPE industry changed overnight when COVID-19 hit last year and the challenges that have come with that, including misinformation and lower-quality product. She shared how Arbill responded to the shifts in the market with education and their own product lines, including one launched for consumers in 2020.