This week - I wanted to share some thoughts from some friends and associates who are attending HARDI 2025 in Atlanta. The event concludes today on Tuesday December 10th, and we will write a more in-depth report on HARDI 2024 next week for our readers. HARDI has been hosting their big annual conference for the channel for decades. This year over 1,900+ key channel leaders … [Read more...] about Where is the channel headed? Thoughts from HARDI 2024
Market Analysis
AI … A Driver of 2025 Profitability?
There has been lots of conversation regarding AI in the HVACR channel over the past few years. It started with the launch of ChatGPT and has gained topical steam since then. Many conversations, articles, seminars. Some have taken the next step to subscribing to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude as well as using these, and CoPilot, for research (and some for writing, even if for … [Read more...] about AI … A Driver of 2025 Profitability?
Building and Keeping a Winning Culture Through Leadership
The famous Peter Drucker said "culture eats strategy for breakfast." The one thing he didn't say, but inferred, is that culture stems from great leadership. In a time where seemingly everyone is running faster than ever and, for much of your staff, this year may have been a grind, a strong culture that is reinforced by appreciative leadership, is critical. Consider … [Read more...] about Building and Keeping a Winning Culture Through Leadership
Ferguson Annual Report Analysis … HVACR and Plumbing Dual Trade focus continues
A few weeks back my colleague David Gordon wrote a column on Ferguson's Q4 numbers. Ferguson added to that release with additional information that was contained in their full annual report. I wanted to see what the Ferguson Annual report had to share to our recent analysis in HVACRtrends, and the distributor series on Ferguson that I wrote for MDM. Did anything major … [Read more...] about Ferguson Annual Report Analysis … HVACR and Plumbing Dual Trade focus continues
Market updates from William Blair, HARDI and HVACR Trends
As I was working on writing a column for the thanksgiving break a couple of items caught my eye that I thought would be fun to share this week. Finding good data sources and programs for the HVACR Channel can sometimes be like a scavenger hunt, so this week I thought I would share some tidbits that could save you some search time. The 1st update is from William Blair … [Read more...] about Market updates from William Blair, HARDI and HVACR Trends
Watsco growth highlighted in MDM Series
Watsco's Growth over the past 20+ years has been driven by a core buy and build philosophy and an investment in digital customer self service tools and services. I eagerly anticipated writing the Case Study series on Watsco for Modern Distribution Management, as I consider its strategic approach unique in the North American B2B distribution. Watsco operates as a … [Read more...] about Watsco growth highlighted in MDM Series
Managing inventory is the key to driving sales and gross margin
Managing your inventory is the key to driving both top-line sales and gross margin performance in 2025 – I had a discussion last week with my colleague Brent Johnstone from ACTvantage about ways distributors can increase gross margin without hurting top-line sales. When we first both got into distribution, the prevailing thought of most distributors and manufacturers in the … [Read more...] about Managing inventory is the key to driving sales and gross margin
