The Key to Innovation
Deliver Customer Value
While new product development and advanced technologies have been the standard approach to achieving a competitive edge, leading firms realize that innovation now stems from creating a differentiated customer experience.
Customers who receive additional value through new solution offerings that include insights into product quality and performance and receive extended services outside of the standard sale are likelier to remain loyal.
Commercial models must adapt as chemicals, packaging and specialty materials manufacturers and distributors develop go-to-market strategies that focus on providing customer value. Deploying overlay roles to sell applications, expanding e-commerce platforms for all customer levels and strengthening partner relationships to provide connected logistics are three emerging trends that high performers employ to innovate the customer experience successfully.
Specialist overlay roles for application selling: Traditional sellers may need to gain the skills to communicate the value proposition of application solutions effectively. In addition, adding specialists generates more significant opportunities for expanding the footprint within existing accounts, providing customer “stickiness” while driving incremental margins.
Rise of e-commerce: All customer tiers are now engaging and purchasing daily. As a result, it is now a necessity to ensure quick product ordering and fulfillment.
Deep partner relationships for connected logistics: The demand for connected logistics between manufacturers and distributors is more critical than ever. Distributors must provide the necessary customer purchasing behavior insights and data to help manufacturers develop the offerings and applications buyers desire.
Is your organization developing an innovative customer experience to remain competitive? Alexander Group helps you design job roles, processes and tools that align with your go-to-market model, enhancing partner relationships, sales growth and value-added customer experiences.
How We Help
- Solution selling: Drive commercial team collaboration and accountability.
- Coverage models: Target the right opportunities with the right value by determining your market opportunity and specialty roles.
- Revenue Operations: Invest in Revenue Operations to integrate Marketing, Sales and Service and drive commercial efficiency.
- Sales compensation: Align sales compensation and quota programs to motivate and achieve more aggressive business goals.
- Actionable research & benchmarks: Provide current and relevant data, trends and benchmarks to help guide sales, marketing and operational decisions.
- Opportunity modeling & territory design: Understand your share of wallet at the account or territory level and right size your resources for profitable growth.
Related Insights
Participate in Our Research
Open Opportunities Briefing Offers- Advanced Practices for Commercial Talent Management Manufacturers and distributors achieve revenue and margin outperformance with a lower proportion of above-market pay compared to other industries. Over 60% of leading firms meet monthly to discuss performance with their commercial teams. What are the best practices for developing a talent management strategy that brings a competitive advantage?
- Manufacturing & Distribution Industry Trends Research: Strategies | Insights | Metrics Digital is altering the way customers interact and purchase your offerings. Integrating sales, marketing and service to provide customer value will differentiate your firm, command a premium and deliver sustainable growth. Compare your business processes and performance metrics to your competition to see if you’re hitting the mark.
- Manufacturing & Distribution Productivity Drivers Rising inflation, supply chain constraints and uncertain demand are just a few economic factors that are impacting commercial models. What drivers are manufacturers and distributors investing in to prioritize customer segments, protect margin, and maintain and grow market share?
- Marketing Insights Study Over 150 marketing executives were interviewed to determine the marketing initiatives being prioritized to maximize customer lifetime value. From marketing roles and resource allocation to marketing mix, channels and spend, get the latest insights on where marketing leaders are investing to advance their organization’s marketing maturity.
- Prioritizing Quality Over Quantity: An Analysis of Marketing Demand Generation Performance Leaders in manufacturing and distribution have increased demand generation investments by over 13%. Marketing now accounts for 33% of functional pipeline development. As marketers look to allocate resources between channels and initiatives to increase conversion rates while navigating costs and tracking ROI, how do you determine the best demand gen investment strategies?
- Redefine Excellence Through Customer Experience From executing a customer experience (CX) vision and strategy, deploying the right resources for customer engagement, setting specific CX goals and measurements, and defining the processes and growth plays that drive retention, the study provides insights and metrics for manufacturers and distributors on leading practices for a successful CX program.
- Sales Compensation Hot Topics Survey Over 350 sales compensation leaders across seven industries provided insights on key sales comp topics including costs, quota planning and attainment, profitability, AI’s impact on comp, global comp practices, marketing comp practices and client/deliver services comp practices.
Upcoming Manufacturing and Distribution Events
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Manufacturing/Distribution: From Shop Floor to Smart GTM
Virtual RoundtableBuilding the Revenue-Ready Marketing Organization for Industrials, Building Materials, Specialty Chemicals and Distribution
For industrial, building materials, specialty chemicals and distribution leaders, marketing has long been measured by trade-show booths, catalogs and lead lists rather than pipeline and bookings.
That era is ending. Now, manufacturing and distribution organizations must prepare their Marketing functions to act as an always-on, full-funnel demand engine that proves its contribution with the same discipline as sales. However, only 24% of organizations rate their demand-gen architecture as advanced or optimized, and just 26% say marketing sources 41%+ of pipeline—leaving enormous headroom for teams willing to modernize.
Join Alexander Group’s executive roundtable to examine how leading industrial and distribution organizations are using AI to produce technical content at scale and enable channel partners, while building the full-funnel demand architecture and attribution rigor that proves ROI to the board.
During this one-hour discussion, we’ll tackle:
- Technical content at scale: Using AI to generate specifications, compliance documentation and application content that historically bottlenecked engineering and product teams.
- Distributor and channel enablement: Arming partners with AI-assisted content and turning channel data into pipeline visibility across indirect revenue.
- Beyond the trade show: Rebuilding event-heavy budgets into an always-on, full-funnel demand system with real ROI accountability.
- Attribution and the MQL-to-MQA shift: Moving from lead volume to pipeline quality when only 24% rate their demand architecture as advanced.
- The industrial talent model: Closing gaps in brand strategy, storytelling and digital optimization that stall execution.
Leaders will walk away with:
- An AI playbook for technical content and distributor enablement built for engineered-product realities.
- A full-funnel demand blueprint that finally puts trade show and field spend on the same footing for ROI.
- Marketing-sourced pipeline and demand-architecture benchmarks specific to manufacturing and distribution.
- A shared CMO–CRO framework for channel visibility, lead quality and forecast confidence.
- Priority access to the Manufacturing and Distribution sector briefing and the Revenue-Ready self-diagnostic.
Who Should Attend
CMOs, CROs, CCOs and SVPs/VPs of Marketing and Sales at industrial manufacturers, building-materials producers, specialty-chemicals companies and distributors.
Attendance is limited to foster candor, and sessions are not recorded for distribution.
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Wednesday, September 16, 2026
2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET -
Virtual
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Executive Forum
St. Regis Hotel | Chicago, ILJoin senior sales, marketing, commercial and operations leaders to share stories of transformation, connect 1:1 virtually and take away actionable ideas.
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Wednesday, September 30, 2026 –
Thursday, October 1, 2026 -
St. Regis Hotel | Chicago, IL
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Sales Compensation Symposium
Reserve your spot at Alexander Group’s upcoming Sales Compensation Symposium. Join leading manufacturers and distributors as we discuss the latest strategies and best practices to support your sales reps as you look to set, measure and compensate success.
Practice Leadership
Research & Benchmarks
Get access to the latest go-to-market research and benchmarks to leverage growth drivers for valuation improvement