What happens when a 70-year-old company has doubled its sales in the last five years and needs help tracking their deal performance for the future? They turn to Enable. In this customer story, James Klotz explains how his involvement with everything from negotiation to contracts, approval, and tracking performance, made him realize that they needed a better way to organize, track, pay and assess the eligibility of sales. Read on, to discover how Enable has supported their growth plans while giving them a standardized process for better transparency.

Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Douglas Dynamics designs, manufactures, and sells snow and ice control equipment for light trucks, which is comprised of snowplows and sand and salt spreaders, and related parts and accessories. The company is also a leading manufacturer of turf and other commercial/industrial grounds control products. The company sells its products under the WESTERN®, FISHER®, SnowEx®, TurfEx®, SweepEx® and Henderson® brands, which are among the most established and recognized in the industry. The company has been in business for over 70 years.

We spoke to James Klotz, Sr. Vice President Global Sourcing & Supply, who has been with Douglas Dynamics for over 15 years, to see how they were managing rebates previously and what they’re excited to get from Enable.

Enable will help us track the performance of our deals

James explains, “I'm involved all the way from negotiating those into key supplier contracts through to approval of those agreements with suppliers and then tracking our performance levels against the rebates that we've negotiated.”

When asked what problems he’s seen with rebates, James goes on to explain, “We’ve previously managed everything in Excel spreadsheets, which isn't the best way of doing things, particularly as we've grown through acquisitions and added divisions. Now it’s a lot of moving pieces to keep track of in an Excel document. That prompted us to look for solutions that would help us.

What was the motivation to look for a solution?

James says, “As we've grown, we've doubled in sales over the last five years and definitely see acquisitions as a key part of our go-forward strategy. As a result, we recognize that the complexity of this and tracking of rebates is only going to become more significant.”

Enable will support our growth plans

James explains, “We picked Enable because the product is very intuitive, so it’s easy for our team of 35 people across North America to be able to adopt the tool and get up and running with it. We think Enable satisfies all of our needs and gives us the opportunity to continue to improve.”

Enable gives us visibility we didn’t have before

“As we’re previously managed our rebates in Excel spreadsheets, each division and location has a little different format. Certainly, one of the key things that Enable brings is the ability to standardize the process. Also, we’re looking forward to having more transparency."