Managing Routes to Market: a glimpse into the future Paper prepared for the 19th IMP Conference, Lugano, Switzerland

The importance of managing the B2B channel relationship is increasingly being recognised by suppliers. For example, Carlo Fiorini, CEO of Hewlett Packard, pointed to poor channel relationships as a root cause for poor business performance. Gary Frazier stated “As the world economy evolves, more and more companies are highlighting channel management as among their very top priorities. The opportunities for channel researchers to contribute to knowledge creation in the marketing discipline and, at the same time, affect business practice are almost endless”. Research was conducted via nineteen in-depth interviews of senior channel managers from a range of organisations and sectors to identify key issues that are likely to influence their channel strategies in the future. The subsequent interviews were analysed and a number of key strategic issues were identified as future challenges for channel managers. Also, over twenty ‘trends’ emerged from the interviews, which would undoubtedly influence the way channels would be managed in the future. The purpose of the paper is to report on these key strategic findings and to link them to channel literature where appropriate. 1 Frazier, G.L. (1999), “Organizing and Managing Channels of Distribution”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 27:2, p.237.