Keeping an Eye on Technology Futures, No Hidden Agendas, New Attitudes, No Platitudes!
The "Supplier" is typically the designer and marketer (example, Apple). In this global age, manufacture is usually contracted out (iPod and other Apple products are made in China). Sales and distribution intermediaries service the consumer. Apple initially sells iPhone only through AT&T (Cingular), though iPod is now sold by several different intermediaries - retail stores and online.
Disintermediation is supposedly dooming distributors, retailers, wholesalers, and all other intermediaries between suppliers and end customers. Because the Internet lets customers connect to and order from the primary source of a product, there's presumably no need for traditional distribution channels.
But there's another side to the Disintermediation story. Some products need a significant amount of support. Industrial automation is a good example: Selection from a confusing variety of available products and options, correct ordering with optimal pricing and delivery, selection and purchase of related accessories which must be ordered separately from others suppliers, installation of the complete system, and services such as maintenance and calibration to assure optimal operation over useful system life.
Who will provide all this value? Certainly not manufacturers. Even the largest automation suppliers cannot supply the multiplicity of products. And they cannot have "local" presence everywhere. So this value must be provided by intermediaries.
Distributors are necessary - but not just for "Local stock". The job of the distribution channel is to supply all the additional products and services needed to maximize value to the customer.
The distributor who provides products and services better than anyone else is the one who is immune to "disintermediation". Any attempts by a manufacturer/supplier to disintermediate merely result in replacement by alternative suppliers. It's an interesting twist - suppliers becoming disintermediated.
