Since coming to tED magazine nearly two years ago, I have caught on to a few topics that I follow very closely.
Millennials and how to recruit, retain and prepare for them to be the future of this industry.
Building relationships between manufacturers, distributors and contractors.
The threat of non-traditional sources of distributions, including online retailers like AmazonSupply.com and DIY stores like Home Depot.
And creating the right brand for your company, so your customers will feel the way they should about doing business with you.
But for all of that to work in your favor, you need one very important thing.
Innovation.
That is why I have been working so closely with UnLeashWD and founder Dirk Beveridge. It doesn’t matter HOW you innovate. The important part is that you DO innovate.
You can read any of the more than 66,000 books listed on Amazon.com about innovation. But the truth is only one talks directly about and to distribution. And that’s Beveridge’s about to be released book “Innovate!”, which is being published by the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors.
“I believe that leaders within distribution are finding themselves in a once-in-a-career opportunity to create a culture of transformation and innovation,” Beveridge said. “We are facing the perfect storm of disruptive change and as leaders we need to seize this opportunity to craft a new vision, culture, value proposition and business model for the future.”
Beveridge writes about how a CEO of a Fortune 500 company told him that “Distribution as we know it is dead”, and another who points out that only 1 in 10 distributors are prepared or are preparing for the future, and he realized that there is work to be done.
“The book integrates stories and lessons from within distribution with those from other businesses and industries that on the surface have little relation to the distribution business – but in total provides new thinking and new models for distributors who are contemplating their future,” Beveridge said.
To teach you more about “Innovate!”, Beveridge is launching a 5-part series of webinars to explain each chapter in the book. The webinars begin on Monday, September 15, and will be held each day that week at 3pm Central time.
“The webinar series provides a an excellent opportunity to get functional teams – and even cross functional teams around the table and explore the significant challenges and opportunities we face as distributors, and begin serious conversations about what can and must be done,” Beveridge said.
The important part of the webinar, and of “Innovate!” is it is not just for the CEO. It takes a team to innovate, and that means including all employees into consideration when planning for the future.
“We have more generations in our workforce than ever before. New thinking is at odds with legacy thinking,” Beveridge adds. “The webinar series will provide and opportunity for the most senior and tenured to sit around a table and explore the future with the younger generations to begin serious dialog about the future of the business.”
To register for the webinar, you can just click here.
Part one will focus on some of the important terms that can both impact or decrease your opportunities to innovate at your distributorship. Beveridge will also explain the “Disruptive Wheel of Change” and why he describes it as “vicious”.
Webinars for the rest of the week will focus on the importance of culture and how it impacts your innovation, because without the right leadership from the top, you can’t get buy-in from all of your employees, which is essential to any innovation.
The rest of the week will examine “Creating the right value proposition”, “Building new business models” and “Transformative Leadership”.
Again, to register for the first webinar, just click here.
Then be ready to make the changes you need to make to prepare yourself for the future.
“Dirk presents a compelling case for the need of the distributor to consider its business model and actively pursue a deliberate process of reinvention that will help ensure viability and vitality of their business for the future. He gives solid examples of what to do and how to do it, and a roadmap to reimagine our business model and value proposition. I highly recommend this book and it has been added to the required reading list at Summit.”
Victor R. Jury, Jr.
CEO
Summit Electric Supply Co., Inc.
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