BPMA’s Account Assyst Mike Collins has published a report on ‘Distributor Failure Analysis’. The report is often hardnosed and cutting, and won’t make friends everywhere. There are a number of salient and pertinent points which the industry will find both interesting and informative.

Some Key Chapters Include: Key Failure Indicators, 2013 case Studies, Directors with a history, New & Recently formed Distributors, a refreshing view on why you should advance credit,

One particular chapter is on: ‘Why you should deal with professional distributors only and beware fringe distributors’. This makes interesting reading and echo’s Sourcing City’s position of running events and services exclusively for ‘Professional Distributors’:

Here is an excerpt from that chapter: “There is also a somewhat controversial and interesting aside here when it comes to “fringe distributors” i.e. those whose core business lies outside of the industry. Often these are printers or stationery companies doing some promotional items as a secondary income. Opinion is certainly divided within the industry with criticism seemingly coming from several 100% focused distributors that these parties should not be in the industry whatsoever.

There are continued rumblings that suppliers are letting them down generally in facilitating it. Whether this be true or not it is certainly a factor that stationery companies generally operate off lower margins than are traditionally associated with a proper consultant-style distributors, who in the main provide superior professional advice and guidance to end users. Accordingly driving the prices down and taking the consultant element out of the equation cannot really be a good thing in the end, in our opinion. Successful focused distributors will yield more in the end?but not if they no longer exist!

When it comes to printing companies we would suggest that there are also complications that do not help the industry overall. For example when a printer gets a call from an end user to say garnish a stand for a trade show what will his automatic thought be? Naturally we would be most surprised if it was not “what print is required here?”?after all it is his core business. The afterthought is therefore by definition “oh, and what promotional goods do we need to finish it all off”. The bottom line is that there is more focus on print and less on promotional items that in turn may manifest itself into less orders for suppliers! Think about it – is this right for your industry, or might you just be collectively shooting yourselves in the foot as a consequence? In truth we don’t really know either to be honest, but we just ask the question in the circumstances so that you might think about it as a supplier.”

Please click more info for full 86 page detailed report and case studies.