Two years ago, Robert Walter, CEO of Cardinal Health Inc. , was on a panel with several other health-care product distributors. After outlining Cardinal's view of a new kind of distribution company, one which seeks new ways to add value for its customers, Walter was taken aback by the hospital supplier who followed him on the program. Distributors today are doing too many complicated things, running up their cost structure, he said. We need to stop talking about fancy value-added services and "go back to blocking and tackling," back to the basics of logistical product movement that are the real heart of distribution. "It was a direct attack on everything I had just said," Walter recalls.
Walter got his chance to respond when an audience member asked how the various panelists felt about the two very...