The benefits of peer-to-peer networking cannot be overestimated, and that give-and-take needn’t stop at the boundaries of a buying group or a trade-show booth. Some of today’s most innovative ideas take root in other industries. Better yet, many business trailblazers are other wholesale distributors who face challenges similar to those encountered in the jan/san industry.

This month’s cover story details the success of Owens & Minor, a medical supply distributor that serves as a compelling example of the managerial power created by activity-based costing (ABC), an accounting method that has generated recent buzz in distribution circles. Its purpose is to determine the true costs of doing business. Jan/san has been slow to embrace ABC, but experts are confident it will continue to creep into distributors’ vocabularies, as well as their management strategies.

Seventy percent of the spam arriving in e-mail inboxes today is in some way illegal, according to the Federal Trade Commission, but is there anything distributors can do about it? This month’s Tech Central article, “Spam Jam,” explains how spammers work, and why the pesky influx of junk e-mail won’t stop anytime soon. Some distributors have nipped it in the bud, but at what cost?




POSTED ON: 8/1/2003