The AI Readiness Assessment
A benchmarked read on where your organization really stands with AI.
Every distributor has an opinion about how ready it is for AI. Very few have evidence. The AI Readiness Assessment replaces the opinion with a measurement — for your company, and for the industry as a whole.
How it connects to the framework. The GROWER framework, laid out in the Playbook and its workbook, defines what a worthwhile AI initiative looks like. This assessment is the work behind the human side of that framework — the two enablers, Engage People and Rethink Work — measured rigorously enough to produce a real benchmark rather than a rule of thumb. The framework is the map; this is the ground truth the map is drawn from.
Built on the two enablers. Engage People and Rethink Work are where AI adoption lives or dies — AI literacy, readiness, change management, and alignment across roles on one side; process redesign, workflow transformation, and operational management on the other. The assessment measures both, the same way every time, so the results actually mean something when you line them up.
Get to your source of truth. Leadership's read on its own organization is usually a floor above where the work happens. The assessment gathers the real picture from across the organization, so what comes back reflects what's true, not what's assumed.
Benchmark against the industry. A score on its own is just a number. Set against the field — the other distributors making the same bets you are — it tells you whether you're leading, keeping pace, or falling behind. That comparison doesn't exist anywhere else, and it's usually the part that moves people to act.
What you walk away with. A clear, defensible starting point: where you stand, where the industry stands, and which of the two enablers is holding you back. Most companies never get that picture. This is how you get yours.
Why it matters. I spent two decades in wholesale distribution before I ever stepped into a research role, and I've watched this industry get sold one wave of technology after another on promises and gut feel. AI is the biggest wave yet — and most distributors are making expensive bets with no honest way to know where they stand. This work exists to change that: to give the industry a real, shared benchmark instead of a sales pitch, built from evidence instead of hype. Every organization that takes part makes that picture sharper for everyone who comes next.