编者按： 本文最初发表于 领英.
很多年前，美国曾经有一个臭名昭著的服装店小偷团伙 他们的 作案手法 很简单，但很优雅。他们用一根长棍一次性将大量衣服从衣架上取下，抢劫速度非常快。
有一天， 随着关于这种犯罪的都市传说的流传, the gang was caught when one store, at the suggestion of a cop, arranged its clothes with alternate hangers facing opposite directions (see the photograph below). This messed up the racking and the gang’s modus operandi and slowed down the thieves by forcing them to remove one hanger at a time.
图片来源：Venkatesh Rao，Breaking Smart 时事通讯： 生产力政治.
I love this story because it helps me illustrate a point I’ve come to appreciate in the last 10 months I’ve immersed in the agri-input industry:
渠道管理就是政治
Channel, at the end of the day, is about stakeholders vying to control the distribution. The fundamental reason why you should study the channel and its structures of distribution (Tier-1, Tier-2) deeply is not to simply get “organized” or “efficient” upto the last mile for its own sake, but to gain political control over the channel. Otherwise, you risk someone else taking control.
请允许我拼出显而易见的事实。
There is no such thing as a “disorganized” channel. Every state of “organization” of channel is a means of control for somebody. And If you don’t know who that is, it probably isn’t you. As we build platforms which manage the 通过机器智能渠道, 了解谁从特定的分配结构中受益变得更加重要。
That’s why I want to talk today about the politics of Channel Management. Shall we dive in?
在我的 最后发表, when I asked the question, “What influences the buying behavior of Indian farmers, when it comes to agri-inputs? ” and analyzed the 贸易渠道的重要性 在农业投入营销方面，我从 阿希什·阿加德，阿南德农村营销研究所助理教授。
阿希什写道，
“I spent about four years in the agri-inputs industry, and felt that there was no innovation in most of the business practices and processes…I find that agri-inputs is largely a product and/or price driven industry — successful companies either have new products, or they are low-priced. No efforts made to understand either the consumer or channel member more closely.”
Even if you disagree with his comments about understanding channel members, it’s a fact that we still have a long way to go to deeply understand the needs of the channel and the customers.
想想看。
Why is it that the fundamental problems in the channel distribution haven’t been solved yet? 塔斯里玛汗, 在她的故事中 在 经济时报 关于 农业创业公司，总结的很好
“They(Agri Startups) are trying to disrupt the traditional channels of distribution—local retail shops and co-operatives closely associated with the farmers for ages but which have inherent challenges such as non-timely availability of products, non-transparent pricing and fake products.”
“Inherent challenges?”. Absolutely.
If you have been working hard for a decade attempting to solve these problems for world’s leading agrochemical companies, like we at iConcept do, you would know that we are talking about three intractable, entangled, messy problems.
顺便问一下，您是否知道解决这些问题的最时髦、最性感的方法，或者至少向全世界宣称您正在 2018 年解决这些问题？
向技术世界的乌托邦主义者致歉，我正在谈论区块链。许多人认为，解决农业投入品中的可追溯性和假冒产品的所有途径都在区块链结束，尽管它 重大障碍 性能、可扩展性、安全性和能源可持续性。
If you ask us, with a decade of experience, we’ve figured so far that nothing is more perfectly suited to Indian market conditions (or even other emerging markets, as our experience in Phillipines, Kenya, Malaysia & Indonesia attests) than the humble bar-coding solution. Sure, it may not look as cool as Block chain. However, cost-wise. efficiency-wise. flexibility-wise. It is the best appropriate Indian solution.
以下是我们的 m-PIN 条码解决方案方法的完整工作流程，该方法现已成为农业化学行业的行业规范。
This diagram is largely self-explanatory, and I don’t want to beat our own drums. But, I must tell you this.
根据我们目前的经验，这种内部 mPIN 和外部 mPIN 的双重方法在共同应对渠道库存和渠道忠诚度挑战方面创造了一个积极的反馈循环。它帮助农用化学品和杂交种子公司解决最大化产品可用性和改善营运资金的相互冲突的挑战。
最大限度地提高产品可用性是显而易见的。但是，什么是营运资本改善？对于你们大多数人来说，这是日常事务。请允许我为没有经验的人拼写基础知识。
营运资本改善：
当您管理渠道时，您会努力优化库存数据以确定正确的安全库存水平。您设置最佳库存规范、批量大小。您分析滞销、过时的库存并平衡不同地点的库存，以确保降低库存持有成本。
到目前为止，一切都很好。
这种方法是否一劳永逸地解决了上述所有三个问题？
你知道答案。
或许，这有助于反思亨利·戴维·梭罗 (Henry David Thoreau) 曾经说过的关于技术的话。
“Technology is an improved means to an unimproved end”
正是这种认识使渠道管理成为政治野兽。
这三个问题是 政治的 通过设计。为了有效地解决这些问题，您需要清晰的战略愿景、试验分销结构的能力（参见下图了解结构概述）并在您的渠道合作伙伴中实施它们，最后但并非最不重要的一点，建立有效的业务系统，可以有效地控制符合您的战略愿景的渠道。
如果您正在阅读台词，衣架小偷故事开头的寓意是非常清楚的。
当你试图在最后一英里附近的渠道边缘强制实施统一性时，你就会暴露自己受到竞争对手的攻击。事实上，你的渠道实力越弱，你的分销结构应该越多样化（基于地理限制) 以最大限度地提高可用性并抵制农业投入品制造商和渠道合作伙伴之间动荡的政治方程式的控制。
您如何发挥渠道管理的艺术？您如何运行更好的渠道参与计划？您是否根据扩展目标尝试不同的分布结构？您如何从一种结构过渡到另一种分配结构？
你同意我的观点吗？您想分享您的坦率反馈吗？读。辩论。争论。在评论区。
PS：这篇文章的灵感来自于我在 生产力政治.