Distribution: Rethinking Priorities

According to the study, distributors are deeply involved in demand-generation activities, executing end-user demand-generation campaigns to drive leads, segmenting their own customer bases to identify new prospects and identifying vendors whose products are sold in tandem to assist those vendors with joint sales and marketing activities.

"Distribution is evolving as the centerpiece of the channel network that links end users in specific segments with resellers skilled in those segments and vendors with the technologies that serve those segments, tying them all together to deploy tailored solutions into targeted end-user markets," says Tim Curran, GTDC CEO.