The way customers want to buy from distributors is in the midst of radical change. At the core of this change is the traditional personal and local relationship based on donuts, golf club memberships and expense accounts is evolving to relationships based on value. Today’s and tomorrow’s customer is interested in purchasing solutions - they are focused on making decisions based on the final business outcome they will achieve. They increasingly seek digital interaction for ease, efficiency and expertise. The time is now to rethink your business model and how it is structured to interact with and sell to your customers. They will increasingly shift their spend to those distributors that are focused on delivering business outcomes, engineered solutions, lower installed costs and total cost of ownership - all of which will be delivered through a technology-infused, data-driven and user-friendly platform.

This article was originally titled “Business model evolution” in the ASA News section of the July 2018 print edition of Supply House Times.