Why do I often say that distribution, as a type of business, is dying? Not only because before my eyes there are many examples of the fact that this is a process of an idea and it is not reversible. I take a couple of minutes to prove that the process of mass deliverance from intermediaries has a clear and irreversible trend.
Disintermediation
Disintermediation - in marketing, is the elimination of intermediaries from the marketing channel, the value chain of movement of goods from the plant to the consumer. Disintermediation - this means doing everything possible to sell products directly to customers, and not through wholesale resellers.
There are four main reasons for the massive, in many segments of the market, the observed process of refusal from intermediaries, the presence of these reasons is formulated in 4 types of disintermediation. So, there are:
technological disintermediation is one that has a technological cause;
professional disintermediation - its reason is the change in the perception of professionalism and the sources of obtaining professional knowledge;
Corporate disintermediation is the cause of which is in the development of business processes.
cultural disintermediation - the reason for which is the growth of general education, consumer culture
Technological disintermediation
Technological disintermediation is the elimination of a professional intermediary and its replacement ... with a more technological scheme, a device (vending trade, for example), a sales technology, and also not trying to influence the sales (information) channel. Logistic distribution, dealing with the distribution of goods "reached out". Today, a manufacturer perceives a distribution channel, not as a means, but as the distance between the purchaser's decision to purchase a product / service and the beginning of the consumption of selected products. Therefore, the reduction of the channel is perceived by the manufacturer as an approximation to consumption. The consumer also buys with pleasure in "company stores", "without intermediaries", "without extra charges", "directly from the factory" and under other agitation. Channel straightening and reduction of links of the channel are promoted by bank crediting, leasing, development of a logical infrastructure, electronic means of communication, sales, accounting and control.
Professional disintermediation
Professional disintermediation is the elimination of the “face of influence”, the “abnormal” intermediary who previously gave information, advice, and with his authority contributed to the decision to purchase. Today, the seller in the store’s trading room who knows less about the product he sells than the manufacturer’s offsite page is no longer a beacon of knowledge and not a guru. Finally, the smartphone in the hands of the buyer put such a "seller" in his Lokhov place. The current multiplicity of channels for obtaining information leads to the fact that the client turns to the seller after studying the available information and making a decision, not so much for consultation, as for clarifying some information that only the manufacturer often owns sufficiently and which he has already managed to share with the buyer.
Corporate disintermediation
Corporate disintermediation is reflected in the growth of the efficiency of the business structures of the manufacturer, simplification of organizational structures with the distribution and consolidation of roles and rights in the organization. Today, the middle manager has more knowledge and experience, gets more opportunities and rights to make decisions. In other words, the functions of an intermediary and consultant become capable of performing many managers of the manufacturer. And if before there were few such managers and they were concentrated there, big money quickly turned around - in distribution, but today there are more trade specialists, the well-being of the manufacturer, who anyone can afford to train and motivate such specialists, is growing.
Cultural disintermediation
The basis of cultural disintermediation is the growth of skills and abilities of customers associated with independence in decision making, the ability to independently understand something in the face of uncertainty, increased risk, a desire to actively influence the manufacturer and, at least, to inform their surroundings, etc. In addition, the buyer today is himself becoming an active supplier of information for the manufacturer about his needs; the company only needs to carefully analyze it, say, Internet activity. The role of the distributor - as an intermediary in the transfer of information from the buyer - to the manufacturer, in this case, comes to naught.
Something instead of output:
And there, in those segments of the market where all four reasons for refusal from various intermediaries are observed, one can see there firsthand that disintermediation is a trend. In the same segments where intermediaries still dominate, everything can soon change radically if ... if the intermediary does not formulate the market what is the added value for the buyer, which is still reflected in the distribution margin on the value of the goods.