Channel management in both B2B and B2C industries is evolving quickly
Channel management in both B2B and B2C industries is evolving quickly
Channel management in both B2B and B2C industries is evolving quickly
By Barton Goldenberg, President of ISM, Inc.
April 4, 2014
Who could have forecasted the explosive growth of companies like Amazon, Apple, iTunes, Sysco, or Zappos? Many of these companies are now multi-billion dollar leaders within their respective industries. Consider the dramatic changes that have taken place at bookstores, record shops, and travel agents. Any company today that has not implemented a seamless multi-channel strategy (e.g., stocking distributors, agents/brokers, direct sales, indirect sales, contact centers, self-serve web, social communities) risks their own demise.
Severe channel disruption will continue to take place over the next five years and will meaningfully impact the way your company distributes its goods and services in the future. You must understand where your industry’s channel management is heading, and then put into place the optimal multi-channel strategy that typically includes enhanced business processes and the utilization of integration technologies with each channel partner.
Multi-channel strategy optimizes customer channel preference versus lowest cost-to-serve channel. Yet determining customer channel preference requires hard work, and determining the lowest cost-to-serve channel [for each customer] often is not tracked by companies because it is hard to do. Yet properly done, channel optimization drives both customer satisfaction and profitability. So it is not a matter of whether you will need to achieve channel optimization but rather how you will go about achieving channel optimization. Do you have any thoughts regarding how to achieve this optimization?
On April 8th, at 1:00 p.m., I will be digging into this topic during ISM’s monthly webinar. I encourage to you attend, and bring your questions and thoughts along.