The more effective a digital transformation is, the better the benefits gained by the business. Research by BCG shows that more than 80% of companies plan to accelerate their companies’ digital transformations, with overwhelming evidence showing that successful digital transformations drive performance and competitive advantage.

Whether your company are approaching a digital transformation now or in the future, you’ll likely be faced with a decision to implement a new software system, to mostly improve processes or replace an existing system that isn't performing how it should be. An investment in  rebate management software for example, you will need to justify it and may start asking yourself what are the key business outcomes if I implement this software in my organisation?

In our January webinar and detailed in our infographic below we explore some of the many business outcomes that can come out of a rebate management software implementation for distributors, wholesalers and retailers.

Key business outcome 1: Selling more competitively and profitably

Distributors, retailers and wholesalers strive to build powerful supply chains that will enable them to get their products to market faster, more efficiently and more economically than their competition all whilst staying profitable. One way they can do this is by using rebates to drive profitable growth.

However, with such tight margins it’s imperative to track rebates and ensure you are collecting them on time and in a consistent and accurate manner. If you don’t have an easy way to manage and track them, it is all too easy to unintentionally sacrifice margin or offer uncompetitive pricing because rebates are not taken into account.

A rebate management system gives you a single version of the truth so distributors, retailers and wholesalers have a frictionless route to the rebate they have earned. Therefore, they can price more precisely and sell more competitively.

Key business outcome 2: Optimizing purchasing

For many years now, purchasing teams have been working towards cutting costs and increasing revenue but in doing so have faced many barriers including manual processes and a lack of clarity, especially when it comes to negotiating contract terms for rebates.

It doesn’t help that rebate contract terms are rarely the same from one agreement to another and they can be detailed and rather complex. The purchasing department needs to have a clearer understanding of the suppliers’ contract requirements.

Of course, rebate management technology remains the enabler that will allow you to optimize your purchasing processes. The goal should be to speed up processes in order to free purchasing from repetitive and time-consuming tasks, allowing them to focus on more business-critical operations.

Key business outcome 3: Pursuing the long tail of rebates

Many organizations do not pursue all of the available rebates with their suppliers. They typically don't have the time and resources and as a result only focus on the 20-50% of their suppliers that account for a perceived 80% of potential earnings.

Should you be ignoring the rest of your supplier base? The answer is no, because pursuing the long tail of rebates could become a significant amount of rebate for your company.

By pursuing the long tail of rebates, 90% of your rebate earnings coming from your top 10 suppliers could turn into 70% from those top 10 suppliers by growing the rebate income from other potential untapped sources that are already available to you.

Enable can give you increased visibility over ALL of your suppliers and reduce the admin burden of managing rebate to a point where there's a net benefit to paying attention to the smaller suppliers.