Advertisement Gary Nuttall, President, Gray Tools Canada This article appeared  in Industrial Distribution’s March/April print issue. To view the full digital edition,  click here . In today’s fast-paced economic environment, businesses of all sizes and types are experiencing some common challenges: increased competition, diminishing customer loyalty, and a growing pressure to deliver quality products that will fit shrinking budgets. Unfortunately, industrial distributors and manufacturers often have a limited view of one another’s role in growing sales and addressing these mutually intensifying competitive challenges.  Manufacturers are sometimes viewed exclusively as product suppliers that are supposed to deliver a quality product at a competitive price, have it in stock, and be able to supply it on time.  Industrial distributors are expected to fully embrace a manufacturer’ products, learn their benefits and functionality, and promote them exclusively to their end use customers. Faced with fierce competition and commoditization in most categories, it takes a more creative business approach in order to differentiate, offer increased value, and profitably grow sales. To accomplish these goals, a change in the business mindset is required – one that fosters closer relationships and goes beyond merely supply chain management. Here are just four examples of how distributors can take advantage of their suppliers’ capabilities to foster closer relationships, which in turn will make them more relevant to their customers: Gary Nuttall, President, Gray Tools Canada Product Training:  Industrial distributors are expected to offer the right product solution for a specific need, and be a one-stop supplier for a variety of products across many different categories. For this reason, distributors need to have access to a variety of suppliers and build a broad and complex inventory. Distributors’ sales forces face a mammoth task – to learn the features and benefits of every product and the need it is supposed to solve.  This is hard to accomplish […]