FACING THE FORCES OF CHANGE PART V
The new Facing the Forces of Change report, the fifth in the 16-year-long series of highly acclaimed wholesale distribution industry trend reports; is based on a cross-industry survey of wholesale distribution executives. The new report says the combined effects of trends in electronic commerce, supply chain integration, strategic alliances, and globalization are fundamentally changing the way the way the world does business. This new business environment offers new and extremely threatening ways for both current competitors and new combinations of new competitors to attack wholesaler-distributors' market share. The distribution Research & Education Foundation is the research arm of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW). The new report pains a startling picture of a near future in which distributors' market share will be attacked on a number of fronts, not only by such recognized competitors as other wholesaler-distributors in the same line of trade, but also by wholesaler-distributors from other lines of trade and even by new competitors from outside the industry. This threatening environment will mean that distribution firms will have to think in terms of multiple competitors, each trying to take away a portion of the market share in different ways, rather than one easily identified major competitor attacking through one method. In addition to an explanation of the threats facing the industry today, the report contains guidance on how wholesale distribution firms can sharpen their individual core competencies and leverage them to combat the attacks on their market share that the report predicts. As were earlier Facing the Forces of Change reports, the new study was produced by surveying wholesale distribution and supplier executives from a wide variety of industry lines of trade as to their opinions and experiences today and their projections for the year 2003. The new report will again be paired with a videotape that summarizes and explores the report's projections.

For more information, contact Rick Ludwick, NAW Publications, 1725 K St. NW, Dept. T, Washington, DC 20006, 202-872-0885, FAX 202-785-0586.