manufacturers to focus on helpful business modernization. At the same time, there has been a rise in rapidly evolving technology that enables companies in just about every industry to go to market in any way they wish. This progress, coupled with the way new models are emerging, will significantly impact how dealers and suppliers work together and make money going forward. To understand and prepare for this inevitable new future for the distribution industry, FEDA has established an association council composed of distribution and manufacturing leaders who are exploring how forging partner- based, instead of competitive-based, business relationships between foodservice equipment distributors and manufacturers could help both groups become more profitable. Dealers and suppliers working together differently, as well as going to market together differently, are just several recommendations from major distribution industry consultants, investors and researchers. FEDA Future of Distribution Council facilitator Chad Autry, professor of supply chain management at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, has worked closely with the council over the past year to unpack new insights about how to turn competitive mindsets into profitable collaborations.
So far, Autry has illuminated where distribution strategies, in general, are headed and how differently the supply chain will function in the future, especially due to anticipated disruptions in global shipping and logistics. Dealers and suppliers can overcome these challenges, Autry has emphasized, if they stop viewing each other as competitors working against each other and, instead, begin trusting each other and working toward real supply chain integration.
Autry believes that building such
relationships across an industry is difficult, but stresses the following: • Trust across companies is not automatic — it is cultivated.
• Different types of trust exist and are based on competence, benevolence, integrity, affect (logic, perception, consistent actions, reliability, feelings of warmth), and institutions. • Contact density (many people connected to each other) plus trust can lead to social capital, a durable form of trust that can be drawn upon like a bank account. • Things that erode trust between organizations are conflicting goals and values; relational breaches; opportunistic behaviors; erosion of the contact network; and overly legalistic, contractual or formal interactions. The council’s focus in 2025 will be to fully understand the economic
The council’s focus in 2025 will be to fully understand the economic advantages of supply chain integration and to identify ways individual dealers and suppliers may build trust to achieve those benefits.
advantages of supply chain integration and to identify ways individual dealers and suppliers may build trust to achieve those benefits. This work includes simulating customer interactions, as the dealers and manufacturers on the FDC will start practicing “sitting on the same side of the table” to face end users’ problems as a unit. They will also study best practice cases to see how collaborative success has been achieved in other industries and will brainstorm ways that the “industry climate” can be dialed down to move from default competitiveness toward default collaboration. For more information about the FEDA Future of Distribution Council, please contact FEDA CEO Tracy Mulqueen at
tracy@feda.com or 224- 293-6501.
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