Wholesalers are a vital component of the global supply chain, connecting manufacturers with retailers or direct-to-consumer businesses. Their role in facilitating the movement of goods allows manufacturers to focus on production and retailers to focus on sales. While the wholesale industry has been slow to adopt technology, recent years have seen significant disruptions.
Early adopters of technology are gaining first-mover advantage and creating significant barriers to entry for both incumbent laggards and newcomers. Disruptive e-commerce platforms like Amazon Business, eBay Wholesale, and Alibaba are transforming front-end customer touchpoints and revolutionizing goods delivery through GPS tracking and real-time delivery updates, posing competitive challenges as well as collaboration opportunities.
On the operations side, technology-driven inventory management systems and data-driven decision making are creating a competitive edge for the wholesalers who align technology with their strategic objectives. As technology continues to shape the wholesale industry, those organizations that embrace it methodically and strategically, yet innovatively will be best positioned to succeed.
This is where Build a Wholesale Business-Aligned IT Strategy comes in. An adaptation of Info-Tech’s Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy blueprint, it keeps the business vision, mission, and priorities at the center while guiding a CIO team at a Wholesale entity in formulating an IT strategy that aligns with their industry context and specific business goals.