3 Critical Considerations of Direct-To-Customer Strategies for B2B Manufacturers

Channel partners frequently have more influence than the manufacturers on how prospects make decisions. Historically, the channel has provided scale to manufacturing sales operations, and manufacturers have accepted a reduction in the amount of control they have over revenue streams.  More recently, it has become clear that being distanced from end customers comes with a more significant cost-the inability to identify and quickly react to their needs.
The requirement to see through to the end customer is critical to taking advantage of the technologies disrupting manufacturing. The 2018 JDA Intelligent Manufacturing Survey, for example, found that 44 percent of manufacturers are focused on improving forecasting with demand sensing-and this requires a clear line of site to end customer behavior, starting with an infrastructure to go direct-to-customer (D2C).