Components of Distribution Management

Abstract

Although the components of modern materials and physical distribution management are comparatively easy to define, pinpointing exactly which companies are distributors and which are not is a much more difficult task. The definition of what constitutes a distributor encompasses such a wide range of businesses and marketing permutations that the ultimate results cannot help but to be so all encompassing that they can be somewhat ambiguous. Often the student of logistics finds that determining whether or not a company is a distributor is best pursued by identifying the extent to which they perform functions that clearly belong to other types of businesses, such as manufacturing or retailing. Ultimately, it can be maintained that all enterprises that sell products to retailers and other merchants and/or to industrial, institutional, and commercial users but who do not sell in significant amounts to the ultimate customer can be termed distributors. In this sense, instead of being confined to a narrow band of businesses, most companies that deal with the disbursement of raw materials and finished products belong in one sense or another to the distribution industry.