News and Trends

• Organic-foods popularity spawns healthy growth for United Natural
  United Natural Foods, founded by a former trash collector working from his Volkswagen van, has ridden the organic-foods craze to become a $1 billion publicly traded powerhouse. With 17,000 retail customers, and $3.3 billion in sales this fiscal year, United Natural dominates the distribution chain in the organic-foods marketplace. As one of only two national distributors in this particular niche, the company wields unusual clout with manufacturers. CNNmoney.com/Fortune (2/12)

• Rexel notched 3.2% sales gain in 2007
  French electrical distributor Rexel saw its sales rise from $14.22 billion a year earlier to $14.67 billion in 2007. Net income dipped 24% to $196.6 million versus $258.8 million in the previous year, owing to expenses related to the company's IPO. Industrial Distribution (2/14)

• Wireless bar code system solves inventory inefficiency
  Baldwin Richardson Foods had a state-of-the-art enterprise resource planning system to provide inventory control but was confounded by the human element -- inventory changes were entered manually and not in a consistently timely way. The result was extreme inefficiency, with managers oversupplying products. They were unsure if they had all the ingredients they needed to keep production running. The solution was a wireless bar-coding system that tracks the inventory continually. DC Velocity (2/2008)

• Other News

• Airgas buys Detroit-area welding operations
  Welding Magazine (2/13)

• Ingram Micro shares fall on profit warning
  Reuters (2/13)

	Save time and money with NAW SmartBrief Job Listings. Advertise your company's open positions in this newsletter and target more than 49,000 wholesale distribution industry professionals, passive as well as active job-seekers. Let your company's hiring manager or recruiter know that they can take 15% off current prices with coupon code FEB15 for the entire month of February!
	ADVERTISEMENT

Best Practices

• Boards should have emergency plan in place for CEO succession
  An emergency CEO succession plan must be hammered out before a crisis hits, and should never be shared beyond the boardroom; the leaders formulating this plan must evaluate critical factors such as the key criteria for interim leadership of the company; the potential pool of candidates; and what-if scenarios that take into account the simultaneous loss of other top executives. BusinessWeek (2/7)

• Motivate workers to focus on goals during downturn
  During tough economic times, companies can weather the downturn by having individuals and organizations focus on specific goals. Leaders should make their impressions of the past year's results clear and clarify expectations for the year ahead. Forbes (2/6)

Sales

• Keep customers loyal by making them feel special
  As many as two-thirds of customers leave regular suppliers for a competitor because they don't feel their original supplier made them feel important. Asking customers on a regular basis how they think you're doing can be essential in sending the message to customers that you care. Manage Smarter (2/6)

Hot Topics

Top five news stories selected by NAW SmartBrief readers in the past week.

• Grainger to meet with DOJ regarding lawsuit (Modern Distribution Management)

• United Stationers chief discusses expansion into industrial market (Modern Distribution Management)

• Improve customer service to set your company apart: six tips (CEO Strategist)

• Private labels offer profits, pitfalls (Progressive Distributor)

• Key to cold calls is to keep it simple (American City Business Journals)

• Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.

Small Business Manager

• Experts advise small firms to outsource bookkeeping
  Tax time is especially stressful for small-business owners who do not have good bookkeeping skills, or those who do everything themselves and must play catch-up with bookkeeping. Experts recommend these businesses outsource the bookkeeping, hiring an outside firm to customize an accounting program. The Oregonian (Portland) (2/14)

Executive Life

• Opinion: Airline mergers would hurt travelers
  Consolidation in the airline industry could leave consumers with just three large airlines, writes Rep. James L. Oberstar, D-Minn. Oberstar, who is chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said mergers will cause long-term losses for workers and consumers. "The merged carrier is never greater than the sum of its parts," he notes. "It is always less, often much less." BusinessWeek (2/15)

• Is beer the new wine?
  The recent influx of specialty beers is giving sommeliers a new challenge. Similar to wine, it's now becoming important to know about the subtle flavors in beer styles, the proper ways to serve specialty brews and how to match beer with complementary foods. "Beer should be an aromatic and taste-and-texture experience. But we all know what the stuff looks like has a huge impact to how people perceive things," according to a beer consultant with the Siebel Institute of Technology. The Arizona Republic (Phoenix)/Associated Press (2/13)

NAW Insider

• NAW and The Hartford
  NAW has partnered with The Hartford to offer insurance expertise and comprehensive coverage tailored to the specific needs of wholesaler-distributors. The Hartford also offers expedited claims-handling services and a countrywide network of loss control and risk management experts to help wholesaler-distributors protect their businesses and minimize loss costs. More information available here.

• Transform your sales force for the 21st century
  Distribution companies, by their nature, should be sales-oriented companies. However, many distributors don't do sales very well. That's the premise behind Transforming Your Sales Force for the 21st Century, Second Edition. Written by Dave Kahle for distribution sales managers and executives, this new second edition provides a blueprint to transform sales forces into highly directable, effective and focused performers.

Weekly Poll

• Does your company have a CEO succession plan?
  After voting once, check out the real-time poll results on NAW's All Access page as often as you'd like.

	Yes, we have developed a plan of action.
	We have given it some thought but have made no decisions.
	No, we have not addressed the issue.

Assistant Fill Plant Manager Gases Plus Casper, WY Director of Sales Pacor Inc. Cinnaminson, New Jersey

SmartQuote

I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." --Thomas Jefferson, third U.S. president