Technology Leader Panel:
Solutions that Enable Great Digital Strategies 

Available on-demand

Distributors often conflate digital with online sales. But digital capabilities are still essential to your success even if your business model means you won’t see a significant portion of your sales coming through a shopping cart in the near future. 

Generally, digital technologies can be applied across a distributor’s business:

• Distributor to Customer: This may include online training, product search and selection, services information or scheduling, account management, chat, delivery tracking and much more.
• Distributor Internal: Process automation, internal communication and project management.
• Distributor to Supplier: Communication, shipment tracking, financial reconciliation and training. 

While a great digital strategy requires a website, that’s just the starting point. Building connections and communication from the customer to the supplier is necessary to drive sales, manage costs and optimize.

Panelists

Ryan Lee, Nautical

Joe Albrecht, Xngage

Jason Hein, Bloomreach

Blake Vinson, DataXstream

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Thank you to our sponsors:

About our panelists:

Ryan Lee

Ryan Lee is the Founder & CEO of Nautical Commerce, the multi-vendor ecommerce platform. Ryan has an extensive background in commerce, fintech and logistics. He launched Apple Pay internationally, was an exec at Visa, led product at Turvo and a fintech startup before founding Nautical. 

Ryan is skilled at developing and driving a full-stack cloud technology vision and strategy to increase revenues, grow the client base and achieve efficiencies in a results-oriented way. Nautical, enables companies to undergo digital transformations and own their industry by becoming a marketplace using its multi-vendor technology.

Joe Albrecht

With over 25 years of experience in the software industry, Joe Albrecht has served in various executive leadership roles assisting customers with digital initiatives. A highlight has been the nearly 10 years spent working for one of the largest national digital consulting agencies and servicing numerous Fortune 500 clients in the US and EMEA.

Joe is the founder, CEO and managing partner of Xngage, a digital commerce consulting and services firm, located in Cleveland, Ohio. His passion for clients, technology and problem-solving fuels a constant desire to innovate, integrate and deploy the capabilities required to meet his clients’ digital transformation challenges with top-tier B2B ecommerce solution delivery.

Joe holds a MBA from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and a Computer Science Master from the University of Ulm, Germany.

Jason Hein 

Jason Hein is a leading digital strategist and innovator for B2B businesses, with over 25 years of experience collaborating with companies of all sizes — from the Fortune 50 to family-owned independents — to build their online businesses. At Bloomreach, Jason combines his direct experience managing a variety of industrial product categories (from abrasives to z-bar hangers) with leading technologies and innovative new strategies to help manufacturers and distributors differentiate their digital business, build customer trust and grow revenue online.

Blake Vinson

Blake Vinson is the vice president of solution engineering at DataXstream. With over 15 years of SAP consulting experience, he leads the solution engineering teams involved in pre-sales, product demonstrations, sales and solution engineering, as well as product roadmap support. Blake specializes in a deep understanding of customer processes and needs and building out the best solutions for the organization. 

About our host:

Ian Heller

Founder & Senior Partner, Distribution Strategy Group

Ian Heller is Founder & Senior Partner at Distribution Strategy Group, and has more than 30 years of experience executing marketing and e-business strategy in the wholesale distribution industry. He has written and spoken extensively on the impact of digital disruption on distributors.