Our first rebate management conference came to a close in sunny Miami on Thursday, May 26 where we got the chance to see the rebate community come together from far and wide, offering a bevy of opportunities for networking and stimulating conversation.  

There were also plenty of discussions around industry best practices and trends, product releases and inspiring speaker sessions that explored the new world of possibility for rebates and how companies and individuals alike can break free from the status quo and use rebates as a strategic engine for growth.

This year's main theme focused on catalyzing trust and how it is the critical fabric of the economy. Trust is the glue that holds relationships together. However, trading partners don’t always see it that way and collaboration is lost. With this in mind, we wanted to empower our attendees to rebuild trust across trading partners and share insights to serve customers better together.

If you didn’t have the opportunity to catch the conference this year, we’ve broken down some of the most notable sessions shared — just for you!

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS & TREND FOCUSED

• During the opening keynote, CEO Andrew Butt emphasized the importance for growing companies to work together, collaboratively due to market forces that are dramatically reshaping the relationships between manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. From this to supply chain shortages, using rebates as a strategy should be a key component of a company’s rebate management journey.

• Next on stage, Jay McBain, Chief Analyst – Channels, Partnerships & Ecosystems at Canalys answered the topical question - “Are Distributors The Future Of Distribution?”. Distributors have spent 39 years hiding from the customer — sitting behind the partner in a linear supply chain. This will need to change, especially since there are a number of significant headwinds facing the distribution industry over the next decade. Value-added distributors will need to market their value add and become visible as a key element in the ecosystem opportunity, driving value creation, creating network effects, and orchestrating co-innovation. In this captivating session, Jay explored how distributors can weather the storm and emerge as the real winners.

• On the afternoon we were joined by sought-after analyst and speaker, Erik Peterson who is Managing Director of Kearney’s Global Business Policy Council. Erik delivered an insightful presentation on how business leaders worldwide are on countdown and how there is a new and urgent need is to look beyond the current headlines. They need to anticipate and plan for the even more sweeping--and centrifugal--geopolitical, economic, technology, and social challenges that lie dead ahead. We are entering “terra incognita”—unknown territory.  The key features are embattled governmental systems, fragmented economic blocks, diminishing cross-border flows of goods, services, and capital, volatile economic growth, and loss of public trust in longstanding institutions.  Technology, as always, is a wildcard. The implications for business are extraordinary, how well leaders adapt and catalyze their operations to the “same planet, different world” environment will mean the difference between winners and losers. Erik Peterson presented key options on getting ahead of the curve.

• Together, Enable’s Industry Principle, Mo & Solutions Consulting Manager, Case explored the state of global supply chains and the impact this is having on B2B trading partners. With the chaos that has erupted since the pandemic, how can trading partners – and internal teams – manage through the extreme volatility, keep customers happy, maintain margins, and come out with even stronger partnerships at the end of it? A strong pricing strategy – and rebates – have a key role to play in achieving better outcomes for all parties involved.

PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENTS

The summit also brought great announcements regarding new product add-ons Enable is bringing out this year. Our COO, David Hunt took the stage along with fellow key members of Enable and SPA customer Charles Pearce, Commercial Manager, Polypipe to announce the following:

• Special Pricing Agreements (SPAs) let you easily create, track, and manage complex agreements with automated SPA claim calculations that unlock new insights to ensure you get the most out of your SPAs. As part of Enable’s Rebate Cloud, you also get a shared, central place to collaborate with trading partners for full transparency on your agreements and progress.
• Promotions is a new deal type in Enable’s Rebate Cloud that lets you easily create and manage high-quantity, lump sum agreements for marketing and promotional events. With Promotions, you can authorize and invoice promotional deals independently of annual rebate programs, and you can view reports and payments history for your promotional agreements.  
• Executive & Partner Dashboards are brand new dashboards that give you ways to showcase easy-to-digest rebate information.

For executives, they get real-time deal performance metrics, visibility into buying behaviour to quickly make the right decisions on deals and tracking of agreement renewal status. In addition, your biggest rebate opportunities are showcased so you can more easily hit targets that generate additional returns.  

Our partner dashboard gives your customers, suppliers or buying group members full, real-time visibility into their progress on current deal programs. This means no more having to send out reports to each customer, supplier, or group member. They always have the information they need – the same information that you work from – at their fingertips.

PARTNERS OF ENABLE

With our partner ecosystem growing our first featured partner of the day was IDEA President and CEO, David Oldfather who spoke to our CEO, Andrew Butt about the challenges and opportunities facing the electrical industry today, data standards and how IDEA is transforming the electrical industry. Plus, explored the opportunity to expand this powerful initiative across other sectors.

Enable Catalyze concluded with an insightful and engaging keynote from Jonas Laucys, VP of Global Field Operations, Enable on building out a partner ecosystem to amplify the power of Enable in your business.  He touched on how rebate management isn’t a standalone discipline. It touches many areas of the business – from Finance to Commercial teams and its inherently outward facing too as it deals with industry trading partners in the wider ecosystem. In an ideal world, all of those areas and systems work seamlessly together, creating a force multiplier for growth.  

Jonas also announced how we are partnering with PROS to combine industry-leading omnichannel pricing and selling capabilities with a full suite rebate management platform able to service the needs of all functions within an organization. The solution removes unnecessary management and execution complexity and buying friction.

CUSTOMER PANELS

Across two panels we heard directly from our customers spanning a range of industries and roles from construction to finance about their experiences and why they chose to automate their rebate management with the help of Enable.

Why we made the switch: hosted by Jerry Brooner

• Shaina Wan, UAG

• Kerry Atlas, Netplus Alliance
• John Janis, Chadwell Supply
• Jeffrey Moyle, Rexel

Achieving maximum ROI with B2B deals: hosted by Nick Rose

• Colleen Kennedy, Stemco

• Mark Gilham, Grafton
• Jim Skidds, AD
• Scott Weir, Thos Somerville

We are grateful to our partners, speakers and attendees who made this an unforgettable experience, and we look forward to connecting with you all again next year!

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