The Deal Economy - Page 6 - Enable

Businesses managing complex trading agreements face several hurdles that are difficult to overcome entirely when using manual processes and spreadsheets. Lack of transparency, inaccuracy and limited control of rebate accounting processes is common and the ramifications of these can have a damaging effect on profit, compliance, cash flow and business growth. For example, an accounting mistake that supermarket retailer Tesco made meant a £129m fine to avoid prosecution by the FCA for overstating...Continue reading

With ever-more complex special pricing agreements being created in an already vast and competitive market, the ability to efficiently maintain pricing flexibility between manufacturers and distributors has become essential.

Both supplier and customer rebate have been prominent for many years. Their aim is incentivizing purchases and sales and protecting profit margins. A focus on rebate management has helped merchants, buying groups, wholesale distributors and retailers to drive mutually profitable growth with suppliers whilst improving cash flow and reducing risk.

US-based research has shown that alongside rebate agreements, manufacturers and distributors are increasingly collaborating around ‘special pricing agreements’, commonly abbreviated to SPAs, and often referred to as ‘contract support’ in the UK building materials sector.

By necessity, special pricing agreements are collaborative arrangements whereby manufacturers and distributors assist each other for mutual benefit. Initially these types of agreements entered the market to leverage scale, but they have since evolved into a more widespread tool used to grow sales and market share by allowing trading partners to work together in offering a more competitive price than their rivals.

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Contracting is at the core of many B2B relationships and the ability to negotiate and execute contractual agreements is crucial to the success of any business, no matter the size or industry. Contracts don't simply allow companies to complete tasks on time and on budget; a successful contract is integral to business relationship building, accurate planning and problem-solving, and the long-term growth of a company. The importance of good contract management can never be overstated and today ther...Continue reading

Trading agreements involving rebates are prevalent in many industries such as building materials, lumber, HVAC, electrical distributors, buying groups of all types and other wholesale distribution businesses. Rebates are used by suppliers to these industries to influence purchase decisions and drive profitable growth for both the supplier and the wholesaler.Rebates were “invented” as a way of driving sales growth without simply reducing the contract price. By agreeing retrospective financial inc...Continue reading

A rebate management system will help you track, calculate, automate and manage rebates. We have a buyers' guide that outlines everything you should look for in a Rebate Management System, but I wanted to outline my top 12 features in this blog. 1. Complete solution The rebate management system should cover all aspects of your trading relationships from contract to claim. 2. Integration to anything Systems consolidation with any kind of system should be built in — be that ERP integration, EDI, C...Continue reading

It's a complex task managing multiple vendor rebate deals across multiple vendors, multiple product lines, and in some cases multiple units of measure. 2 for 1, multi-pack discounts, retrospective discounts, limited lifetime promotions, not to mention awards points and prizes make rebate accounting a very complex job. By way of illustration, we have worked on one rebate example where there were 300 deals written into 1 vendor contract. Without the right tools and information rebate accountant...Continue reading

Special Pricing Agreements (SPAs) are often considered a necessary evil in most industries. Whilst they can assist you and your trading partners in winning business over your competitors and allow you to enter new markets, the accompanying complications of managing SPAs can leave you wondering if they’re really worth it. Some businesses we have engaged with wish to cease dealing with special pricing agreements due to the burden of managing them! There is no doubt that special pricing agreements...Continue reading

We learn about collaboration from an early age. As children we quickly learn that we need to collaborate with teachers, classmates and team players in order to be successful. "There's no 'i' in 'team' is a common mantra in sports and work teams. And "supply chain collaboration" has been a hot topic for decades. Despite that, there are very few systems that enable wholesale distribution companies and their suppliers in the building materials industry to truly collaborate on their trade agreement...Continue reading

Rebate Management refers to the management of discount claims that are based on volumes of purchases over time. To some companies, that rebate is treated as a bonus. But to others, rebates form a significant proportion of their revenue and for these companies accurate management is absolutely essential. What is a rebate? Rebates were “invented” as a way of driving sales growth without simply reducing the contract price. By agreeing retrospective financial incentives based on actual sales, both...Continue reading

We have witnessed a huge volume of merger and aquisition activity over the years, there were 1,560 recorded deals in 2018 valied at 182.6 bbillion compared to a whopping 6500 mergers and acquisitions were completed in the UK in 2015 with a total value of £433bn. Fast forward to today and merger and aquisition deals have totalled $42.9bn (£35bn), down 69 per cent on the same time last year, according to data from Refinitiv. But despite the large drop in value, the number of deals has fallen only...Continue reading

SPAs (Special Pricing Agreements) are a common vendor program in many industry sectors. The program gives a special product discount for verified sales to an ultra-competitive event where in-stock discounts can’t secure the order. Special pricing agreements trace their roots back to the 1970’s but have shown significant growth in the past decade. As B2B e-commerce now counts for an estimated 15% of all orders and grows at 8% per year, special pricing agreements have grown significantly as price...Continue reading

Vendor monies that support reseller sales are big business. US-based research conducted in October 2018 estimates that, at top performance levels, distributors, dealers, and retailers use $600+ Billion (USD) in vendor funds. Projections from the EU find that approximately €500 Billion (EU) in vendor funds are similarly spent. These funds are found as four primary types including: SPAs — Special Pricing Agreements used by sales to compete with a competitor’s special pricing to a customer MDF --...Continue reading

Rebates, SPAs, claim-backs, contract support are all very similar and at the same time quite different to each other. In essence they are all terms for the money that wholesalers claim from suppliers and manufacturers for selling their products. Some of the key differences lie in how the agreements are formed, whether goods are actually ever handled by the wholesaler, and how the claims are made. Collectively, they are sometimes referred to as “vendor monies”. It is estimated that, annually, the...Continue reading

Companies tend to look for specialist rebate management software when they reach a point where their core business systems are proven to be inadequate. This particularly affects builders' merchants, plumbing distributors, electrical distributors, HVAC distributors and others who operate in the building materials industry. These businesses usually have to deal with a large number of complex trading agreements involving rebates, special pricing agreements, retrospective discounts, over-riders and...Continue reading

Whilst working with a number of organisations across industry sectors such as building materials, buying groups and wholesale and distribution, we have seen a large variety of very complex supplier rebates and trading agreements. These very often involve incredibly complicated performance-based calculations with seemingly endless permutations, and on top of that rebate agreements are subject to periodic review and change. In the building materials sector for example, there are further complicati...Continue reading