In this episode of Distribution at the Crossroads, I sit down with Konrad Konarski, chairperson of the AI Applied Consortium. Konrad is a software engineer by training who's spent his career working at the edge of emerging technology: RFID in Canadian logistics, wireless tech on Shell Prelude, running IBM's AI Center of Excellence, and now leading a nonprofit that bridges AI research, policy, and real-world adoption across industries.

Konrad and I have gotten to know each other over the past year. We've spent time together in Kentucky, San Francisco, and Houston, and I always walk away from those conversations thinking differently. What I think the distribution industry will find interesting about Konrad is his range. His work with the AI Applied Consortium and his passion for policy give him a perspective that most people in this space don't have—but he also gets hands-on. He built a working tariff exposure prototype over a weekend that has since taken on a life of it’s own and provided significant value. That's not a guy who stays in the theoretical.

We cover a lot of ground in this one. We get into what the Consortium submitted to the White House on AI regulation, why most distributors still don't have a real AI policy, and what happens when a technologist and a domain expert are in the same room together. We talk about the skills and opportunities that exist right now, what's possible with this technology, and what organizations need to be thinking about as they prepare. Konrad knows AI, he's been at the forefront of it for over a decade, and he provides some strong ideas and insights for what's coming and how to get ready for it.

Episode Highlights:

[3:03] – The "art of the possible"—why the last two to three years have been a dramatic shift
[3:40] – Konrad's background: RFID in Canada, Shell Prelude, IBM's AI Center of Excellence, and the path to the Consortium
[5:33] – The AI Applied Consortium: a seven-year-old nonprofit with 15 trustees, verticalized councils, and 100+ contributors
[8:04] – Then vs. now: implementing BERT seven years ago versus today's models scoring at PhD levels
[9:40] – What manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and distribution all have in common when it comes to AI adoption
[12:14] – The AI Policy Posture submitted to the White House—and how it ranked above the 99th percentile across 10,000 submissions
[17:33] – The hand-raise that went quiet: 25% of a NAW audience had an AI policy, nearly 0% said their employees understood it
[18:31] – "Our AI policy is don't use ChatGPT—go through Copilot" and what a real AI policy should look like
[22:15] – Tariff 360: a working tariff exposure tool Konrad built over a single weekend
[29:56] – Skills of 2030: creative thinking, problem solving, and resilience—all soft skills
[31:48] – Tacit knowledge: capturing the 30-year expert's decision-making and replicating it across the organization
[39:40] – Innovation velocity and the Blockbuster problem—the window to respond is shrinking
[42:08] – Data as a compounding asset: collect today, augment decisions tomorrow, train autonomous systems the day after

Links & Resources:

Full Show Notes + Transcript

NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence

Modern Distribution Management (MDM)

Connect with Konrad Konarski on LinkedIn

Connect with Nick Pericle on LinkedIn

If you're passionate about where the distribution industry is heading—or you're just starting to explore it—this podcast is for you.

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Ben Albu spent 20+ years at Wesco Distribution, starting the day he showed up at a branch north of Pittsburgh to wash dock doors and fix racking, and ending with a career that spanned Lean operations, M&A leadership, technology strategy, and talent development across one of the largest distributors in North America. He's now the president of Rocky Rail Solutions, where he advises distributors and B2B companies on operational improvement and commercial growth.

In this episode of Distribution at the Crossroads, Ben and I sat down in Austin, Texas before an industry summit and got into a conversation that kept pulling us deeper. We covered how he stumbled into distribution who didn't know what a distributor was, what he learned meeting hundreds of private business owners in hotel lobbies off the highway during a decade of M&A work, and why distribution's greatest competitive advantage isn't its assets, it truly is it’s people.
We also went deep on the technology decisions facing distributors right now. Ben lays out a three-part framework for evaluating a distribution tech stack: right ERP, data abstraction, and integration capability. He makes the case that order entry automation is the single most overlooked, highest-ROI AI application available to distributors today. not because it's a new idea, but because the technology has finally crossed a threshold where it works.

And he names a real crossroads decision: how do you transform your tech stack from one that allows the business to run into one that actually runs the business, all while navigating economic uncertainty, tariff risk, and competitive disruption all at the same time?

Episode Highlights:
[3:58] How Ben landed in distribution by accident
[6:58] Day one on the job: Wesco branch in New Brighton, PA
[11:40] The "academy mindset": why spending your first years across every function of the business is the fastest way to learn distribution
[12:55] How talent development programs have evolved — from informal career ladders to structured first/second/third year onboarding
[20:50] Why distribution is asset-light and people-heavy — and what that means for differentiation and competitive moat
[22:50] Consolidation and profitability: how channel rationalization has driven ~2x EBITDA improvement in electrical distribution
[25:50] The three-legged tech stack: right ERP + data abstraction layer + integration capability = future readiness
[29:50] Why data abstraction barely mattered 6-7 years ago — and why it's now mission-critical for AI applications
[34:25] The hammer looking for a nail: why you should start with the business problem, not the technology
[37:08] Order entry automation: the highest-ROI, most overlooked AI application in distribution today
[42:55] Blueprint takeoff and AI-assisted design: tech migrating from construction job sites into distributor workflows
[45:58] The PO disconnect: why the order that drops today was actually won 4.5 years ago — and why that's almost impossible to learn from the outside
[46:55] The distribution crossroads moment: balancing economic uncertainty, tariff risk, competitive disruption, and technology investment all at once


Links & Resources:
Full Show Notes + Transcript
NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence
Modern Distribution Management (MDM)
Connect with Ben Albu on LinkedIn
Connect with Nick Pericle on LinkedIn

If you're passionate about where the distribution industry is heading—or you're just starting to explore it—this podcast is for you.

In this episode of Distribution at the Crossroads, I sit down with Michael Knight, a veteran operator in distribution who’s led P&Ls, served as a CEO, and stayed hands-on at the front lines of electronic components and industrial distribution.

We talk about what’s may erode distributor value today, and what it will take to reverse that trend. Michael lays out why gross margins keep shrinking, why customer and supplier relationships aren’t enough anymore, and why distributors need to reassert themselves as the mind and the muscle of the supply chain.

What I loved about this conversation is Michael’s balance of candor and optimism. He doesn’t point out the problems and shrug, but instead he explains how to fix them: from building leverage and financial fluency, to unlocking data with modern tools, to embracing mentorship across generations. If you’ve ever wondered how distributors can thrive when everything feels commoditized, this episode will give you the clarity and conviction you need.

Episode Highlights:
[1:00] – Why distributors are devaluing themselves—and how to break the cycle
[5:16] – The real patterns shaping distribution: margin pressure, digitization, and commoditization
[10:30] – Why “belly to belly” selling isn’t enough anymore
[17:00] – Financial fluency: thinking beyond the P&L and into the balance sheet
[22:14] – Data lakes explained: leapfrogging legacy ERP systems
[26:00] – AI’s exponential curve: overestimated short-term, underestimated long-term
[30:14] – Michael’s leadership formula: High IQ, High EQ, Low Ego
[33:00] – Two-way mentorship and building your “kitchen cabinet” of trusted advisors

Links & Resources:
Full Show Notes + Transcript
NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence
Modern Distribution Management (MDM)
Connect with Michael Knight on LinkedIn
Connect with Nick Pericle on LinkedIn

If you're passionate about where the distribution industry is heading—or you're just starting to explore it—this podcast is for you.

Follow, rate, review, and share Distribution at the Crossroads on your platform of choice.