Chadwell Supply is a family-owned distributor that supplies maintenance, repair, and operating supply (MRO) products to the multi-family industry. They supply and distribute everything from toilet paper to refrigerators, and sinks to light fixtures. Product categories include appliances, appliance parts, window coverings, electrical, lighting, hardware, HVAC, HVAC parts, janitorial, paint sundries, plumbing, and pool supplies.

Their Director of Supply Chain Management, John Janis, has been in the industry for 25 years and leads a team of three category managers who handle things like supplier negotiation, pricing and rebates programs as well as a buying team of about seven buyers who are responsible for getting inventory stock into every one of their branches. With 15 locations, another three opening soon, and three distribution centers, that’s a lot of stock to manage!

Tracking rebates with a spreadsheet and a marketing team

John says that in previous roles the marketing team was responsible for tracking supplier rebates and did it with an Excel spreadsheet. He found the same situation when he joined Chadwell Supply. “I won't say it was managed well, but it was managed,” John explains candidly. Sadly, this lack of visibility meant that his category managers couldn’t get sufficient visibility of their targets or even see if a rebate was owed to them.

“[Before Enable] it was all done on spreadsheets. My category managers didn't have much visibility of targets, or even if a rebate was owed to us. And they had no forecast capability, or the ability to track pace of spin, just to where we may reach another tier level for rebate.”

Their ERP (Great Plains) didn’t really have any rebate tracking capability either.

Issues preventing effective rebate tracking

John knew their inability to see what was happening with their rebates was causing challenges for the business. They were potentially missing out on deal earnings, weren’t being reimbursed on time and he even noticed that some margin erosions were going on because they weren’t including rebate dollars as part of their margin. It was time to make a change.

“I quickly recognized that Chadwell Supply was missing out on deal earnings, potentially strained supply relationships, based on rebates and rebate tracking. And maybe a supplier owing us some rebate money that we weren’t aware of.”

Enable: The solution to Chadwell’s rebate challenges

John was looking for a tool that could centralize agreements, allow Chadwell to collaborate with key partners, track spending and spending goals, and provide a single source of data. He said he wanted, “the ability to provide ownership with quick calculations on where we are with the current rebates and current spend”. But, most importantly, he wanted to be able to review how their current rebates are structured and negotiate changes, if necessary.

When they learned about Enable through one of their buying groups they saw a demo. That was all it took. “We believe that Enable is the solution to our rebate management software [needs],” says John.

Since then, he says that his experience with the Enable team has been nothing but exceptional. He is full of praise for the implementation team and his customer success manager who he has great things to say about. “I believe she genuinely cares about our success in utilizing Enable to its fullest potential.”

Turning the department handling rebates from a cost center to a profit center

Although not fully up and running yet, John believes that Enable will lead them to improve on their current processes in agreements with their suppliers. He also thinks Enable will help them maximize returns from their partner agreements. Ultimately, he intends to turn the rebate function from being viewed as a cost center to a profit center.

Is John convinced they made the right decision? Absolutely. In essence, this is why he decided to use Enable. His answer is short, sweet, and to the point.

“I think Enable's going to allow us to simplify the process of tracking and managing rebates.”