Technology in Distribution report (free download)

Last Fall, I partnered with Lawson Software to survey North American distribution companies about their technology spending and plans for 2009. The final report is now available for free download at the following link:

Technology in Distribution:
Trends and Challenges

There’s a lot of data for benchmarking on technology spending by application. Here are a few key findings:

• The wholesaler-distributors in our sample spend one to two percent of their annual revenues on hardware and software per year. Almost 40 percent spend more than $250,000 per year, while the largest companies spending more than $1 million annually.
  
  
• Technology spending by distributors will remain solid in 2009. A majority of companies plan to increase spending in 2009. Smaller distributors are investing to catch up to larger companies. Web-ordering will see the greatest increase in usage in 2009.
  
  
• Surprisingly, many distributors lack the ability to track important customer-level performance metrics. Only four out of ten wholesaler-distributors can accurately track Operating Profit by Customer. One-third of wholesaler-distributors that offer fee-based services can’t even track the profitability of their services! (See chart below)

The survey was conducted last Fall, so the results reflect the impact of the credit crunch and weakened 2009 outlook.

Hope you enjoy! Please feel free to email me with any questions or comments on the study.