I’m the guy in the middle, and I’m really good at it. I’m that line between point A and point B. I’m a distributor.
To be good in the middle, you have to make sure to do what you do with the least amount out of friction possible, or more, to the point, with the least number of friction points possible. If I’m slow, negligent, unresponsive, careless, cumbersome, expensive or just plain aloof when a part goes from A to B, I’m toast. I have to be frictionless.
The middle is lonely but crowded. Many of us are out there competing to make sure you pick us to get the part you need from A to your business on B. If we can do it faster, nicer, quicker while providing the best value to your company, then we get to own the middle. We get to put a fence around A and B. That makes both A and B jubilant with what we do. The trick is to ensure both A and B always need you to get them to connect. And, the burden to remain relevant, once that fence has been raised? It’s on you.
Many new technologies in many different industries are all about getting the guy in the middle out of the way: think travel agents, The Yellow Pages and bookstores. I’ve dealt with this reality in our business for a long time now. However, I never really heard a good word to describe it until very recently. Words are a powerful thing – often a single word allows you to verbalize a concept in a new way that enables the understanding of a very complex concept by just stringing the right syllables together.
The word that knocked me off my axis a bit was “disintermediation.” It’s an economics term that describes some market tendencies to remove intermediaries in a supply chain — you know, “cutting out the middleman.” Disintermediation realigns traditional distribution channels by eliminating middlemen, brokers, agents and distributors.
You see, the guy in the middle can fail in countless ways. Middlemen often are our own worst enemies when we lose sight of the added friction we create when we execute our business practices. If we add friction, we add extra costs that create time delays, which will put us and our A and B partners, at a disadvantage.
Information loss is the real killer. Inside our fence, we have lots of information that allows us to do what we do, hopefully, better than most. This information helps all of our partners from A to B. We add value to the chain with our marketing, sales effort and technology. In short, we stamp our brand into what we do. This is the trick. This is how you hold your middle ground. Keep your information to yourself and leverage what you know to augment our collective sales along the channel.
Disintermediation is not a scary word for distributors only; no matter who you are, you are usually in the middle. Parts manufacturers have to deal with raw materials vendors. Jobbers and technicians have to deal with distributors, stores and online retailers. And on and on, until the replacement part is on the car. So you see, we are all in the middle. Let’s make sure we keep an efficient line between A and B.
