Supply Chain

The Distribution Trap

April 18, 2010

What is one of the greatest forces shaping business today?

It is the rise of Mega Distributors across almost every industry.

Current notions of mass marketing have wrongly convinced tens of thousands of U.S. innovators that the sale and distribution of their products and services is better left in the hands of outside forces.

By catering to the mass market, innovators are allowing Mega Distributors to dilute the value of their products and services, while letting them impose costs and force changes in strategic direction and control. This is the Distribution Trap.

In a compelling five-minute video, Mr. Fred Whyte, President of outdoor power equipment manufacturer STIHL, details what happens when sales and distribution is outsourced.

Click here to see the video.

About the Author

Andrew R. Thomas Blog | Associate Professor of Marketing and International Business

Andrew R. Thomas, Ph.D., is associate professor of marketing and international business at the University of Akron; and, a member of the core faculty at the International School of Management in Paris, France.

He is a bestselling business author/editor, whose 23 books include, most recently, American Shale Energy and the Global Economy: Business and Geopolitical Implications of the Fracking Revolution, The Customer Trap: How to Avoid the Biggest Mistake in Business, Global Supply Chain Security, The Final Journey of the Saturn V, and Soft Landing: Airline Industry Strategy, Service and Safety.

His book The Distribution Trap was awarded the Berry-American Marketing Association Prize for the Best Marketing Book of 2010. Another work, Direct Marketing in Action, was a finalist for the same award in 2008.

Andrew is founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transportation Security and a regularly featured analyst for media outlets around the world.

He has traveled to and conducted business in 120 countries on all seven continents.