Fighting Change in agribusiness - "value creation" and successful CRM needs channel cooperation

In a few recent conversations, I have heard individuals "pining" for the good old days: for decades they made money; life was less complex;  and,  change is hard. Competition was less intense. They asked: why can't we just do business that same way?

Rather than try to provide an answer to this question, I would

pose a different question: 

"How can my company create the

future of its business, ensuring that its core competencies, products

and services all mirror a value-added marketing approach?"

We know what the past looks like, and we can't change it.

Conversely, however, although we don't know what the future

looks like, we do have the power to change it, to shape it,

indeed, to create it the way we want it to be. There are thousands

of such future scenarios currently being developed by

your competitors and mine. Our challenge is to create a

future for ourselves that is more meaningfully in touch with

what our customers demand, and provide it more quickly, less

expensively and with fewer mistakes than the other guys.

I've always maintained that channel partners (manufacturers,

dealers and distributors) are NOT customers. They

are partners. Their mutual goal is to provide value-added

products and services to customers : the end users. For

agrimarketers, this means the grower or the producer. Period.

this assertion, if I'm correct, means it's time in agribusiness for our distribution partnerships to craft cooperatively and jointly an actionable, sustainable way to deliver "value" as defined by their mutual customers and in a way that provides profits for all.