Modern Distribution Management (MDM) Shift event was held last week (May 13-15th in Englewood, Colorado). The event has continued to evolve over the past 9 years, and it was once again attended by who’s who of distribution leaders.
Many leading distributors also presented at MDM Shift ranging from large public companies – Ferguson & Motion Industries to family-held leaders like Kimball Midwest. The evolution of MDM Shift, led by the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW) team has helped SHIFT grow and cover all the key functional areas of distribution.
MDM Shift this year had four tracks for the attendees to choose from:
- Hybrid Sales
- Data Analytics
- Digital
- Culture
I was fortunate to be part of the data analytics track and help lead the kickoff session. I also co-presented a tactical track session with Bill Sexton of Global Industrial on Customer and Product Segmentation. So, for this first article recap we will focus on just the Data Anlytics tracks.
Bill and I decided to dive into publicly reported Customer and Product Segmentation in the Industrial Channel (Fastenal, Grainger, and MSC Industrial). These three publicly traded companies along with Global Industrial whom Bill is a key leader for gave us the opportunity to go tactical and show each of the companies’ unique approach to product and customer segmentation. We covered more than just high level product and customer segmentation tactics. As a total segmentation approach provides the key ingredients you need to create and manage inventory positions, and create better sell side prices that drive sales and profits.
We chose Industrial as the example in this session because Bill is a current leader in the Industrial channel, but we just as easily could have chosen HVACR and highlighted WATSCO and Ferguson.
Editors Note: In partnership with MDM, I have written a series of Distributor Case Studies recently including HVACR leaders Ferguson and WATSCO that you can read and listen to (MDM Podcast) by clicking this link
Data Analytics needs to be more than just a buzzword
Bill Sexton and I showed real examples on how top distributors are adding real value to their business with an organized data analytics approach in a session called The Power of Precise Customer Segmentation.
One of the questions we had in the session and after in the hallway conversations was – How do we know if we are being effective with our data efforts?
That is a loaded question and one that you can’t answer without a deep dive into what the distributor is doing and not doing of course, but there are key warning signs to look for to see if you might be missing opportunities.
If you are not sure how your business is doing I recommend you consider starting with a few questions for each functional unit to look for opportunities.
Pricing Team – Are we using customer potential as a variable in our price profiles and Customer Specific Prices?
(e.g. real data not a sales leader guessing the customer has a $1M spend potential and that we have a 20% share)
Inventory/Purchasing Team – Are we using our top customers buying habits decisions to make inventory level adjustments (to your A,B,C,D designations and potentially your reorder points) at the local level?
(e.g. if your top customer in a local market has an Item they buy at an “A” inventory level in the market, but we have that item at a “C” level then we have some potential top customer misalignment)
Sales Intelligence Team – Are the sales reports we deliver to our sales team (gap analysis, opportunities, etc.) actually being adopted and used?
(e.g. or is it just a check the Data Lake, CRM box data that is a burden to the sales effort)
There are about 5-10 other questions I would ask of course of each functional unit, but I hope you look at the above three examples as simple ways to identify if you have big gaps and big opportunities.
If you have 3 – Yes answers – Congratulations, and are you hiring?…I have friends that I would love for you to consider to join your company.
If you have 3 – No Answers – Find out more and do it now…this is Houston, we have a problem territory.
If you have a mix of Yes, No, and I Don’t Know Answers then you are probably like most distributors with ample areas where you can improve.
The other MDM Shift sessions on Data Analytics were top notch and featured distributor leaders from Ferguson, SRS Distribution,, Kimball Midwest, MDM Analytics and more. Partick McCurdy from Kimball Midwest gave some terrific advice on how to communicate all their data analytics strategy using a simple and common language approach that was one of the best sessions I have seen all year.
MDM and NAW have taken the event to the next level this year and the attendance showed. The venue was packed for almost every session with some of the best discussions I have seen all year at industry events.
Yes, the Tariffs potential impact were talked about and overall economic conditions of course were discussed….but, optimism was in the air.
The group of Distributors who come to MDM Shift every year probably has something to do with that air of optimism. These top distributors do not seem to worry about whether the market will be slightly down, flat, or slightly up. They are wired to take share from the competition to grow in any market condition.
The distributors at MDM Shift this year do not appear to be the “wait and see” and then we will invest distributors. They are investing to grow now, and I’ll bet when I go to SHIFT 2026 many of them will be sharing stories about how much share they took in 2025…..My prediction is the MDM Shift crowd will not give that share gain they take in 2025 back to their wait and see competitors in 2026.
As Always, we appreciate your comments and questions. jgunderson@channelmkt.com
