Customer · Channels · Operations
A new channel usually appears in a meeting as a sales opportunity. Marketplace, shop, direct sales, delivery or B2B: more places to offer the same thing. The problem is that the offer is rarely exactly the same.
At La Cucharona, a dish kept its name but not its proposition. In the shop there was conversation and immediacy. Online, information and ease of choice mattered. In delivery, timing and condition on arrival. In B2B, coordination, reliability and invoicing.
The channel changes what the customer believes they are buying
Customers do not separate the product from the way they access it. If they can order in two minutes, they expect clarity. If they pay for delivery, tracking is part of the service. If they buy for a company, they need less work, not another supplier to manage.
Replicating the catalogue is therefore not enough. We have to decide which need the channel solves and which new promise we are making, even if we have never written it down.
The margin is decided outside the tariff
A commission is visible. Preparation time, incidents, exceptions and internal coordination are less so. Yet those details turn an extra sale into profitable growth or into more activity with little result.
The useful conversation belongs neither to sales alone nor to operations alone. It needs both: what the customer values, which capability it requires, what margin remains and which information will improve the next decision.
Growing through a channel means learning to lead it
Common frameworks help, but the channel behaves differently according to the customer, the market and the maturity of the operation. I learned the same lesson while managing countries and distributors: a shared direction does not remove the need to interpret local reality.
Opening a channel is easy to announce. Turning it into business requires several functions to understand how their work changes and to adjust without losing sight of the shared outcome. The question is not only how much it can sell. It is which company we will have to become to deliver well there.