From the NAW Blog:

Distributors are well-positioned to work intimately with key customers. They can devote the time and resources to engage proactively with customers to understand needs and goals. They can analyze both transactional and customer-provided data to generate industry-specific insights, develop robust benchmarks (in the form of spending patterns seen across similarly grouped customers) and tailor advice to match customer objectives. The benefits of doing so are immense.

From the NAW Blog:

It’s no secret that for years most distributors have neglected core sales skills training for their sellers. There are several reasons for this benign neglect of sales skills investment. First, historically, industrial B2B buyers didn’t necessarily need a highly skilled seller. Their purchases were largely needs-driven — not discretionary — and so the core need was product or technical expertise and order fulfillment. For this reason, virtually all systematic sales training in distribution was focused on products and applications (not selling skills or competencies).