Welcome to this segment, B2B Place Marketing. In this segment, we'll talk about what place means on a very fundamental level, almost as a recap. We'll talk about the type of service, or function add-ons that can be made available by middle men. We can think of a channel like a travel route and finally I will conclude by offering a very easy way for you to organize your channel strategy, so let's get started. Okay, so what is place? So simply put, place of course means distribution, and distribution can be thought of as being like service add-ons, and by that, neither of the type of services that a middle man can offer to smooth out the gaps that exist between a seller and a buyer whether it's in the B2C realm or in the B2B realm. And services can also even be seen as being an augmented product. So I think service marketing and solution marketing have many things in common. Okay, so by services, what type of services are we referring to? Well, it could be related to how to make the consumption of our products better and again in here it could be in the B2C realm. Because all B2B is B2B2C. So we can think in terms of how to make, the consumption by end users better. And given the fact as we'll see later the end users sometimes reached by us, it's not just middle men we're talking about. But it could also be us. How to make the product easier, in terms of time, in terms of location, in terms of having a better assortment of products, in terms of making the quantity in some cases smaller but in some cases larger and also in terms of customizing the product better to the ultimate end use. We can also think in terms of how to make the production easier. Let say if you are middle man you can help in terms of selling. You can help in terms of assembling of the product locally, and this is especially true in the case of international B2B. It could also be being the on-site provider of technical support, if you have that competency. It could also be providing a consistent level of service, again, on site. Which a small manufacturer of course cannot do everywhere. So as we can see there is this host of a services or function add-ons that a middle man can help you provide. So I think a good analogy of distribution or place is that of travelling because if you're going from one place, and let's say that place is being the manufacturer, to another. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line but that's not always possible. That's not always possible. But in the case of B2B, it can be, more so than in a B2C situation. Especially, given that you have fewer and larger buyers. But even in B2B, sometimes you may have many buyers. Many buyers abroad, so that direct kind of channel cannot always be achieved. So, you may have to go indirect, and get the help that you need, such as the functions that I alluded to before. And, in some cases, you may have even more tiers, not just middleman that helps you, but another tier middleman that helps you as well. So given the situation that you're in and given the kind of demand of service add-ons or functions that's demanded by the market, there may be a variety of travel routes that can be taken. So it's like how we travel. Depends on time, how much time we have, and if we have a lot of time, we take a roundabout route but if we're in a hurry, we have to, again, take the shorter route. But it's also a function of resources. Because doing something direct may require you to have much more personnel, much more expertise, much more money. As we saw in distribution, you have two major types. You have direct channels. And it helps nowadays that you can do direct selling online. So e-commerce is becoming a huge area within B2B marketing. But if you need a physical presence that requires direct selling. But you can again, given your situation do it indirect. And we see here that, as a subset of indirect channels, we have full function middlemen and you have so called limited function middlemen. So depending on the amount of help that you need, in cases where you need a lot of help, that's where you have to avail yourself of full-function middlemen, but if your needs are more limited or specialized, then you have the luxury of choosing a middleman that can just help you with that one specialized need.