
30
YEARS
Every side of the relationship
$750M+
DISTRIBUTION TURNOVER RUN
AUD, industrial and B2B
70+
MARKETS
Manufacturer-side portfolio
Then the manufacturer side. I built a sales company from scratch in Australia after a twenty-year distributor agreement ended. I then moved to New Zealand to run a country business across dealer and retail channels. For the last nine years, I led a global portfolio that grew to sixty-five distributor markets - six owned subsidiaries, a €100m+ P&L, seventy countries.
It never stood still. I opened white spots in a dozen or so markets, replaced several partners, took on a whole region of others, and watched a few fail outright. South Africa was the most recent conversion - a second distributor relationship that wasn’t working, replaced six years ago with a wholly-owned sales company. It was the same move I’d first made in Australia.
Some were excellent. Some had been the right choice a decade earlier and no longer were. Working out which was which was the job - and it’s the same question you’re sitting on now.
INSIGHTS
Latest insights
Most manufacturers call their distributors partners. Fewer treat them that way when it comes to information.
A single market concentrates risk. How distributors can spread it, and where the portfolio idea gets misused.
VIEW ALL INSIGHTS

