Sometimes, in order to get the best deal available for everyone involved, the details are very complex. This has prevented rebates from being applied to contracts for a long time. No one on the buy side or sell side of a deal has time to manage complicated details, but that doesn’t have to be a roadblock to contract rebates any longer. Rebates can now be administered and tracked through a digital platform specifically designed for the purpose – and that works alongside an ERP.

Bob Gay is a Rebate & Incentive Program Specialist for Advance Auto Parts, Scott Weir is the newly retired Vice President of Purchasing for Thos. Sommerville Co., and Oisín Cooke is a solutions consultant at Enable. Their platform maximizes the performance of B2B deals by centrally modeling and managing complex rebate programs.

In this episode, Bob, Scott, and Oisín join Supply Chain Now co-hosts Kelly Barner and Scott Luton to discuss:

• Real-world examples of the frustration that has been caused by poorly managed rebate clauses
• Why rebates can be a very effective way to reward and incentivize specific buying patterns and behaviors
• The realistic limitations of ERP systems to manage all necessary business processes – even if they try to indicate that they can

Intro/Outro (00:03):

Welcome to supply chain. Now the voice of global supply chain supply chain now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues. The challenges and opportunities stay tuned to hear from those making global business happen right here on supply chain now.

Scott Luton (00:32):

Hey, good afternoon, Scott Luton and Kelly Barner with you here right here on supply chain. Now welcome to today’s live stream, Kelly, how are you doing? I am doing great.

Kelly Barner (00:42):

This is such a treat. I’m so glad to be here for supply chain. Now main channel livestream,

Scott Luton (00:47):

Wait one on the only Kelly Barner procurement guru supply chain pro, uh, and we’re talking one of our favorite topics, the art of the deal and the art of how, uh, deals and rebates have been evolving, right? We’re not talking about 1982. Are we killing?

Kelly Barner (01:06):

Hopefully not. Although there may be a few people still using spreadsheets. That’s a little 1982.

Scott Luton (01:14):

Well, but you know what, though, we can do everything with spreadsheets and Excel, right? Excel saves the world and Hey, it’s still, it’s still a big part of where we are as global businesses, but Hey, one of the big questions we’re going to be answering Kelly is how are business leaders optimizing their deal management approach to ensure you can add more to the bottom line. So we’ve got a home run panel joining us here momentarily to explore that and a lot more folks buckle up and get ready. We want to hear from you as well. Okay. So Kelly, if you’re good to go, we’re going to say hello to a few folks as they pop in here today, where we’re going a little bit earlier. Uh, th I’m glad that we all set our alarm clock a little bit earlier because typically we go at 12 noon, but we had so much stuff to cover today. We couldn’t, we were too excited to wait. Right? We had to go 30 minutes early.

Kelly Barner (02:00):

We are ready. Let’s

Scott Luton (02:01):

Go. All right. So with that said, Kelly, I want to introduce our guests and we’re going to be switching them in. You’re ready. I’m ready. All right. So first up, we’ve got Bob Gay managing manager, customer profitability for rebates and incentives with advanced auto parts. We’ve got joining Scott. Weir retired vice president of purchasing at Thomas Somerville company and joining their boat is Oisin Cooke solutions consultant with enable. Hey, Hey, Bob Scott OCI. And how are we doing today? Good, thank you. Well, good to see. Each of y’all really enjoyed our prep conversation. We touched on tax minimization strategies. We touched on some football, we touched on some travel, and now we’re going to be talking about the art of the deal, how deal-making has evolved as well as rebates, right? And rebates have come a long way. I’m looking forward to kind of getting each of your takes as long with Kelly’s frankly, what we’re seeing and how companies can get better at it and offer more.

Scott Luton (02:57):

So with all to go though, we’re going to start with a fun, warm up question. So as I look outside here in Metro Atlanta, it has gotta be 70 degrees sunny here in mid November, right before Thanksgiving. Right. And it, uh, we’re ready for that brisk weather, but whatever it is, it’s gorgeous. I’d love to be outside today is national take a hike day. It’s new to me, new to me. So I want to ask each of y’all, if it’s not hiking, what is your favorite outdoor activity? And I want to start with one of our repeat guests here, ocean cook. So ocean, what do you like to do outside? Well,

Oisin Cooke (03:35):

I recently moved to London, so the big city, the big capital in the UK and, um, outside space is kind of a premium, so we don’t have too much of it. So when I can get outside, I like to sit down with friends in the evening, just sit around a campfire or a, you know, a fire pit and enjoy a few drinks and the chill out and the outside spokes.

Scott Luton (03:56):

I love it. Okay. And probably not high seas or Kool-Aid, what’s your favorite drink to consume around the fire pit?

Oisin Cooke (04:03):

Oh, I think, yeah. Yeah.

Scott Luton (04:06):

Wonderful. All right. I’m ready to hang out with you for a weekend coming up. All right. So let’s go to you, Bob, Bob, they’re living in North Carolina. Uh, what’s one of your favorite outdoor activities.

Bob Gay (04:17):

Probably say anything having to do with, with my immediate family is my biggest hobby, but also anything sports related and then happened to be a hopeless golf addict, loved the game, loved to play. You’re not the best at it, but steel absolutely loved to play it.

Scott Luton (04:36):

I love that. And I love that, you know, golf is such a, uh, humility inducing, right? So 1, 1, 1 quick followup question. What’s your favorite course?

Bob Gay (04:48):

Oh my goodness. I had the opportunity to play Sawgrass once and it was incredible, but incredibly tough. But if I had to lay my finger on any one particular course, that’s both tough and satisfying. It’s tobacco road here in North Carolina.

Scott Luton (05:04):

Love it, man. So that 17th island green and saw grass, uh, uh, any video footage of your attempts at that visit exist anywhere.

Bob Gay (05:12):

Oh my gosh. You could not have served that up any better actually card that whole

Scott Luton (05:16):

Man. Okay. All right. So tips for golf with Bob after today’s lesson. Thanks for joining us, Bob. That’s awesome. All right. And finally, Scott we’re. Uh, so we, uh, first off, congratulations, uh, y’all notice that we inserted the word retired as we were introducing Scott 21 years with the Thomas Somerville company. So congratulations, Scott you’ll have a lot more time for outdoor activities. So what’s one of your favorite things to do well,

Scott Weir (05:42):

Uh, thanks for the congratulations on my retirement. I’m definitely enjoying the beginnings of it here. Um, but I would say, you know, I can’t really, I, it was having a hard time trying to decide on what my real favorite is, but I would say preretirement income. It was a road racing I’m into automotive road racing. Sure. Which is just the most fun I could possibly ever have outside. Uh, now that I’m retired, my income has changed a little, um, what I’m going to enjoy the most is walking on the beach.

Scott Luton (06:13):

Love it, man. But you know, the auto racing that is intriguing, we’ll have to chat more about that. And I guess you can want to do that outdoors. So you’ll have a lot more time on your hands to explore both of that, those passions there. Okay. Hey really quick. And well, you know what, Kelly, you’re not getting out of this question. What’s your favorite thing to do outdoors?

Kelly Barner (06:33):

So close. So I actually have an answer that aligns with a lot of what everybody else has said. I have this little plaque that my family got me that says, I’m outdoorsy. I drink wine on the patio, but I do have a fire pit. So my favorite outdoor activity is red wine by the fire pit on a cool evening.

Scott Luton (06:52):

Okay. And a lot of folks don’t know that Kelly has a motorcycle. And so they’ll do some biking. We’ve got some pictures that I couldn’t find here today. We’ll save for another time. Thank you, Amanda. Okay. Hey, let’s say hello to a couple of quick folks. Clay Phillips of course is with us clay, diesel Phillips, uh, cause the engine is always running their clay. Great. Great to have you here today, along with Allie and Amanda at Victoria, all the folks behind the scenes helping to make the production happen. Marty is tuned in via LinkedIn from Dubai man. It’s some really cool things happening in that part of the world. Somebody great to have you here today. And of course Amanda is with us. I’m with you Kelly wine on the porch talking about outdoors. That’s right. Okay. So Kelly, where are we starting with this esteemed panel here today as we get into the, some of the work, right?

Kelly Barner (07:40):

Absolutely. So we’re going to start by getting a little bit of context and we’re going to benefit from Scott wears many years of experience in supply chain and purchasing Scott. What have we seen change over the course of those two decades when it comes to rebates and contracting?

Scott Weir (07:55):

Well, I think the biggest change that we’ve seen in the last 20 years is, is things have gotten more complex. You know, it seems like 20 years ago, rebates were easy to calculate and the management wasn’t as critical about being exact on what they projected values were going to be. Those things are radically different today. We’re looking for quarterly projections and then as you get towards the end of the, for us, it was a calendar year, but towards the end of the fiscal year, it’s monthly projections, even looking to what do we think is going to happen on all the, the, uh, incentive growth programs and all that. And trying to get within a minor, a percentage point of accuracy, you know, to within 1% of accurate on what our year end, um, uh, rebates are gonna be. Um, so that’s, you know, more complex and, um, where accuracy is, is where we’ve gone in the last 20 years.

Kelly Barner (08:48):

Oh, would you say Bob, same thing from your experience, have you seen anything different?

Scott Weir (08:54):

I remember having to

Bob Gay (08:55):

Deal with 2025 years ago or very simple programs that were primarily at the wholesale level and it could have been from where a particular customer were. They, they were in the top 5% of a, of a vendors customers, and they, they deserved a, a little bit larger discount at the end of the year. Now it is progressed in complexity to the point where you have someone who has basic manufacturing, a product, you have a product for a price, and it goes all the way down to the end user. And there are industries where those incentives are managed, calculated from the manufacturer to the wholesaler, to the distributor, to the dealer, then down to maybe not even the DIY customer, but retail and then in consumer. And you can take it from an acre of farmland to a, an automotive product. And there are, you have to work that through the entire supply chain. And so it really has gotten the most complexity.

Scott Luton (10:00):

Yeah, I really quick Kelly, I want to say hello to a few folks as folks are trickling in here. Victor is tuned in via LinkedIn from Tijuana, Mexico. Awesome. Wednesday. Hey, I hope we all have an awesome Wednesday, so great to have you here, Victor. And one of our dear friends, David from Canada is tuned in and whenever he’s not solving manufacturing and supply chain issues, he’s, off-road in his Jeep and then off-road on Saturday repairs on Sunday. Okay. So Kelly, I think we were going to get Oshins take as well. Right? We are

Kelly Barner (10:31):

Mean if there’s one word that jumps out at me from what both Scott and Bob said, it’s complexity, right. Is, does that align with what you’re seeing in the rebates and contracting space?

Oisin Cooke (10:42):

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think one of the things that cause, cause, cause definitely we see complexity being on the rise. So as time has gone on and you know, we’ve been in this game for a good, a good period of time. Now that complexity definitely has, but I think what, what drives that? Or in some cases, at least what drives that is it is a shift in attitude towards it. So it very much seemed to be, you know, from a few years ago that the attitude was, well, sometimes we’ll give a rebate because it’s nice. Or sometimes as Scott said, you know, we need to, you know, give somebody a little bit more of an extra discount or an extra incentive or something like that. But now very much more. So we’re seeing rebates and complex discount structures and complex kind of trade agreement structures being put in place really to try and help drive behaviors on a proactive level rather than just a kind of, oh yeah, we’re going to reward somebody a little bit at the end. It’s more like, okay, we need to build out these programs in this particular way because actually we want to control this behavior at a more granular level throughout the year. We want to develop the way that the purchasing habits or the buying habits or the sales habits of being, uh, being kind of, you know, used from, from month to month, which is why, you know, much more granular reporting and much more kind of frequent and accurate information about it is, is so crucial.

Scott Luton (12:00):

I love that. Okay. So now that we’ve kind of set the table a bit and quit really quick, I’m going to say low to moderate radars tuned in via LinkedIn from a bet warm and sunny Phoenix. Great to have you here today, Montel, we’re talking about the art of the deal, how deal-making has evolved, but also how rebate management has a ball. So we welcome your POV and repeat a former guest. Chuck Johnson’s tuned in via LinkedIn from Bentonville Arkansas course home of one of the dominant retailers and, and bigger and bigger e-commerce players. So great to see here, Chuck look forward to reconnecting with you soon. Okay. So I want to follow up to this conversation question for you, Scott we’re. So Thomas Somerville, tons of different products. And I would imagine that rebate contracts differ not only based on the partner, but also based on product dimensions, a slew of other factors. So Scott, how important are the minor details of contracts and how in the world do you keep track of all those details?

Scott Weir (12:56):

Uh, the minor details are very important, especially as the rebate deal, the rebate contract has gotten more complex. Some of the deals that exist out there are pretty simple. It’s, you know, there still are the vendors that are, you know, you get an X percentage for buying from them. Yeah. You know, that’s an easy one to do. You don’t necessarily need software to project. What’s going to happen with that. But when you get to manufacturers that are a little more discerning with their rebate values, they may, you know, break it down as, uh, uh, give you a percentage based on purchase cost, but give you different targets based on the weight of the product. Certainly one of the manufacturers we had that had a very complex deal structure that it had, I think it was probably 10 different sub categories of products. And you got your rebate based on the weight of how much you bought.

Scott Weir (13:46):

And then you’ve got rebated based on the cost. So trying to just figure out what is the right weight to have. We actually, it took an awful long time to find out that the manufacturer didn’t publish what they were measuring us on publicly. We were getting the weights off their public information from their website. So we assumed that was the weight that they were going to judge us on. It turned out that all the weight on the website was packaging, weight, package, weight. So the shipping weight of something, whereas our targets and the values that we had achieved through the year were based on the production weight. Of course less packaging totally makes sense. But even our regional sales manager had no idea. He, you know what we, you know, we’re using the software and we’re comparing the numbers, my money, you know, the dollar amount is exactly on, but my target, I thought I had hit it. Well, no I didn’t because I was using a higher weight because it was in a box, you know, and they had to actually go to it to get the information out of the system because they didn’t have the public available. So it was one of those things that you wouldn’t expect initially until you started into the details to figure out why is there a number of different from ours? So that’s definitely one of the, you know, one of, one of the things that you have to keep your eyes out.

Scott Luton (15:00):

Yep. So Bob, I’m coming to you next, but really quick Kelly, you know, kind of along the lines of somewhat Scott shared there just yesterday, we had a great live stream conversation with our friends at risk methods and you know, that definition and the alignment around definition and the alignment around what success looks like and having, you know, if you’ve got this master equation, the whole team has to be, have the same definition of each, each constantly, each variable, right? So the master of the quadratic equation or something of supply chain or rebates Kelly, but based on what you heard Scott share, what’s between your ears here.

Kelly Barner (15:33):

Interesting. Because if there’s anything that we can all probably agree to is that there’s never a good thing. That’s a surprise in business, right? You don’t want anybody to be surprised, but in this area, as I was listening to Scott talk, it actually makes me think this is one of those areas where suppliers, sales, reps and procurement or purchasing are very much aligned because the supplier wants their rebate structure to drive desired buying behavior. Right. And procurement wants to make sure that if we have this agreement put in place with certain rebate incentives and we factored that into, you know, what we think the overall value of that contract is going to be. We also want to make sure that we hit those targets in a strategic way. And so it’s actually trying to make sure that everybody’s aligned because the supplier wants you to get there for the sales point of view and procurement want you to get there for the savings point of view. It’s trying to work together to motivate the behaviors of the people actually doing the buying. It’s one of those rare, great opportunities that might lend itself to some natural collaborations.

Scott Luton (16:35):

I love that. Uh, we got avoid the tug of war. So Bob coming, your next, your take on, you know, how you, uh, see the increasing need to not only manage the rebate programs, right? Kind of the, at the higher altitude, but to analyze them to determine what programs are working, where they’re falling short and where in the world, where, where should we find those levers so that we can make the changes to make them more successful? What’s your take on all that?

Bob Gay (17:01):

Oddly enough, exactly. What Kelly just mentioned on Scott’s comments was the notes that I was taking is it’s a lot about visibility. It’s a lot about projecting, um, the goals and, or, uh, the behavior that you’re trying to drive. And it, the, the key thing behind any rebate and or incentives, not just a rebate, but the incentives as a whole they’re capable of so much. It all depends on how you design it, how you implement it, how you provide the visibility to the customer to make sure that everyone from procurement to the sales team, to the customer are on the same wavelength driving towards the same goals of being mutually beneficial. So in that instance, you’re, you’re going to try and new and or different things, and insent on delivery metrics volume. It could be very well. The Scott mentioned the weight of deliveries of how he was receiving it. So you must analyze those programs and find out what’s working. Because if you, if you do build a program, that’s simply not driving the behavior you’re after, then you need to adjust that program, cancel the program, pull that customer off that program, put them onto another. So it’s a constant state of adjustment. It’s a constant state of analysis. You can’t just put it into a system and hope it works, or else you’re simply throwing boards or darts at a dartboard, hoping that it works.

Scott Luton (18:27):

Yeah. Right. Hope is not a strategy. Uh, or at least if it is one it’s a really bad one, but also it’s not, we talked about in the pre-show we’re talking about infomercials and stuff. This is not a Ron Popeil set it and forget it. Right. You’ve got to set it and then management manage it to make it more effective. Right. Oh, sheen. I want to come to you next, based on what Bob has said and kept some, you know, the comments thus far, any additional observations, OCI.

Oisin Cooke (18:52):

Yeah. Just to pick up on something that, that Bobby just mentioned. So, you know, I really, we see that all the time we really do. And I think one of the key things too, that people often forget is, you know, it’s not about just doing that analysis once and kind of saying, okay, what’s working right now. This thing’s working, we’re going to cancel everything else and roll out to everyone because everybody’s different. You know, whether it’s, whether you’re on the supply side or the, uh, or the buy side or whichever end of the table, you’re looking at, you know, all of your trading partners, your suppliers, your customers, your everybody’s going to be slightly different. And if you’ve got a program that works really, really great grateful for one customer or one type of customer or one group of customers, that’s, that’s great, but it might not work as well for everybody else.

Oisin Cooke (19:37):

And having that kind of constant iterative process of actually this is going to be a regular audit that we’re going to do. Where are we going to look at everything, analyze, what’s working, break it down in as many different ways as we can find that and accept that, you know, it doesn’t have to be the same across the board for everybody because maybe that’s not what everybody wants. And it’s about building those, you know, those bespoke agreements between you and a group of customers, or even a specific customer or supplier, you know, and, and, and making sure that it is mutually beneficial and you’re improving those relationships, you know, not just kind of a, you know, an across the board record of, uh, everything looks the same, so it’s fine. Right.

Scott Luton (20:17):

Okay. Anyone else can envision, if you’re like me that there’s fire pit conversations, ocean oceans around, there’s a lot of intellectual conversation and perhaps even some white boards as they solve global business ills. I mean, goodness gracious, OCI. And I love that with beer, the beer and the beer. Hey, really quick. Before I come to Scott to get his final observations before Kelly takes his talking ERP and stuff, I want to make sure folks know about the white paper that talks about the evolution of rebate management that our friends at enable and oceans team have put out. If we can Amanda play Allie, you name it. If we can drop that in the comments and make sure that’s really easy for folks, that’d be one click away from some of the stuff in case they’re visual learners. Like many of us are. Okay. So Scott we’re any additional observations around, you know, the details, constant tweak, some of the things that Bob and ocean have talked about before moving to more of the technology.

Scott Weir (21:11):

No, I think I’m both Bob and I’ve seen have, uh, really covered it pretty well. Um, there’s, you know, it’s, uh, it comes down to making sure that, you know, you internally understand what the vendor’s asking of you and that the vendor understands what you’re saying. So it’s, it’s that language back and forth so that you really need to understand each other. And as was said earlier, nobody wants to be surprised come to the end of the day. Whenever you, you think you’ve made a target and you didn’t, and then you have to explain why you didn’t know. So you want all those that you want, all that information up front, you want to be as accurate, as possible, as detailed as possible and make it not onerous so that everybody understands what each other is saying. And everybody can get to the same answer easily. Yeah.

Scott Luton (21:53):

I think I read the latest rankings of the top 100 worst conversations to have of all time and bad rebates, surprises. Number seven on the top 100 list. I believe

Kelly Barner (22:03):

Whatever you do, don’t bring that up at Thanksgiving dinner. Not saying as a holiday, like a debate about bad rebate management.

Scott Luton (22:10):

I love it. Okay. So own that note, Kelly, let’s keep driving. I think we’re gonna be talking technology then next we are.

Kelly Barner (22:17):

So Bob, I want to get your thoughts around finding the right tool to fix the problem, right? We’ve established complexity. We’ve established that this is a widespread challenging thing, but that there’s huge opportunity if you can effectively manage rebates. And so having the right tool for the job is critical when you were comparing what any ERP system can handle to what, something like a more specialized tool like enable can handle. What was your thought and decision making process there?

Bob Gay (22:43):

It was, there were several thought processes that went into it. And the initial thought many years ago, when we first started looking into systems to manage our rebates is that there simply was no system available. There was no company that was no system, nothing out there could manage the level of complexity that we had. And lo and behold enable rose to the top pretty quickly. Now, at the time we were also going into the initial negotiations and discussions of implementing a new ERP system, both major brand ERP systems said that they could handle our rebates and we quickly found out that they could not. And while they could, you know, you think of a, uh, company-wide organization, our or ERP system, that’s supposed to wrangle all of your financials. Of course, a system like that can manage to pay 3% back to our customer. But is it five locations? Is it one location? Are you paying to one address or are you sending five checks to five locations? The complexities of the programs in our evaluation, the ERP simply were not capable of that level of complexity. And then the implementation timelines are a lot longer with any ERP system compared to enable you need enable, has it almost down to a science and while they are incredibly flexible, they have a way of working that that is simply shorter than any ERP implementation, I think, any larger organization without

Kelly Barner (24:16):

Now. Oh, she does. That does what Bob shared sound like what you hear an awful lot. Do you hear similar challenges and people out there looking for solutions that they just can’t seem to find through their ERP?

Oisin Cooke (24:27):

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and, and it, I think this, this feeds into, to what we were talking about in terms of the increase in complexity over time and as the attitudes and the markets change that complexity grows, you know, and it often is that, you know, as Bob said, ERP systems are perfectly capable of handling a very simple rebate, or maybe it’s just an input field for what is the rebate, you type it in here, you know? And, and that’s, that’s fine if that’s where you, where you are with your, with your rebates and the kind of agreements that you have, if things are developing and things are becoming more complex and things are becoming more difficult, you know, what we often find when people kind of come and speak to us. So we’re kind of, you know, surveying the market is, is very much, you know, people will have their ERP system and then a whole series of spreadsheets that they’re using to support that, that basic functionality that lives within the ERP system.

Oisin Cooke (25:15):

So, you know, it, you end up saying, okay, well actually, we’re just going to do it on the ERP because we’ve got one system and that’s going to deal with everything. But then quite quickly you realize actually I might only have one system, but I’ve got one system and six manual processes and four spreadsheets and threefold. And it, it really does, you know, because that, as we said, the complexity increases the strain on something like that increases. And the likelihood that one system is going to be able to handle that as well as all of your other ERP stuff is, is just not, it’s not realistic.

Kelly Barner (25:47):

Well, especially when that one system wasn’t designed for this purpose, right? I mean, it’s, there are a lot of things. Sometimes I feel bad for ERP because, you know, there’s a lot of things that they do. There’s a lot of things they were designed to do, but business has changed so much whether it’s complexity or simply our approaches or even user expectations. How does enable actually work with ERP is to make sure that their capabilities aren’t necessarily lost that you’re not creating that side channel, but that you’re still meeting those expectations and addressing those needs around company.

Oisin Cooke (26:19):

Absolutely. I mean, we, you know, we don’t replace an LP because any is covering a whole, a whole bunch of things. What we do is rebate management, you know, and we, we very much stand on our own two feet and that space where a standalone system, where, you know, if you’re in that position where you’re struggling to manage things from that point of view, that’s what we’ve, we’ve been designed for from the ground up for that purpose. You know, what we then do is we then feed that back into the ERP. So that eventually all of your information is in one place, you know, and all of that information about what you’re accruing, what your projections, your forecast, your know performance of all of these different things is, can be fed right back into where you want it and where you need it. But, you know, we’re just removing that expectation that you’re actually going to calculate all of that in one place. Because as you know, we’ve said, it’s, it’s, it’s not realistic.

Scott Luton (27:11):

Yeah. You want to work with folks that jump out of the bed every morning to focus on whatever it need you have, right? Whatever value that you’re looking to bring in, you know, it’s like, if you’re the world champion Atlanta Braves and we’re missing one ACE in the rotation for next year, let’s go find someone that specializes in striking people out and starting baseball games. But the other thing, right, kidding aside. The other thing is when, you know, how often do you hear the word spreadsheets, especially in with amongst teams and thinking, oh, joy, we’re going to be moving faster because we have spreadsheets. Right. And it’s typically it doesn’t happen like that. Right. All right. So I want to, I’m going to share a couple of things here, and then I’m coming to you next to Scott for some recommendations. So Shyam says great stuff and business to business.

Scott Luton (28:00):

When we talk about consumer, then their shift in buying behavior where most of the companies are focusing on fill rate companies should have the agile approach of managing such changes, whatever it is, shipping prototyping, fill rates, you name it early supplier engagement, change management and supply chain management. Resilience are all pivotal. Those are some really big, big dots there at chime. You’re right. Supplier engagement, change management and supply chain management resilience are all pivotal, especially in this era that we’re fighting through the VUCA have. Y’all heard of VUCA yet the acronym. Okay. Okay. I can’t remember what I came here, what each of the letters stands for. It means it’s tough times right now navigate through these global supply chains. So shine, good stuff there. Okay. Scott, we’re I want to come to you next. Uh, cause we won’t talk about recommendations. Right? We’ve kind of spent the first half of our conversation today kind of talking observations, the evolution, the need of, of really getting in the details of, of working also with customized platforms. Right? And as you, as you look to upgrade, let’s get into some recommendations for, Hey, keeping up with the ever evolving rebate management landscape, because not only are you trying to bring more value for your customers and the consumers, but you gotta keep up with the competition. Right. Scott?

Scott Weir (29:20):

Yeah. I agree. One of the things, you know, as I’m sitting here thinking about the history of how long I’ve been doing this, maybe managing, you know, what, what did, how much should we buy? How much do we get, you know, for buying that stuff in the world of rebates is, you know, I did that all, all of the spreadsheets that Microsoft access queries and forms and templates and everything to try and do what we do today and enable, which is, you know, I’ve got variables between manufacturers and all the different ways that we are having to calculate things. So if you’ve got 150 to 200 different rebates to CA to deal with on an annual basis, trying to customize each individual query each individual spreadsheet to try and manage that subset of information is, is difficult. And, and it isn’t scalable. Uh, I’m an absolute example of that.

Scott Weir (30:13):

I mean, in, I think it was in 2019, um, whenever in late 20, 19, early 2020, when I first made contact with an enable. Um, and I don’t recall whether it was me finding something online or whether somebody cold called me, but it was like, I, you know, I don’t think we need the software to do this. I’ve got it managed. But then, you know, you get to the point where wait a minute, I can do other things. I don’t need to spend 50% of my time or 20% of my time managing rebates. How do I make this? You know, where I’ve created all this custom stuff to manage the rebates, how do we get that into one platform? I don’t think it can happen. Well, you know, it can, and I didn’t realize it could, you know, and most people would probably not realize the same, um, if they weren’t exposed to something, uh, that that can do it, you need to be able to, you know, different vendors, different parameters, different measurement basis, you know, take out the D the discount.

Scott Weir (31:07):

Don’t take out the discount. Uh, how many categories do you have to break it down into? Um, scalability, um, becomes the biggest problem with an individual doing this. Um, and then me communicating to the board of directors, or even to the president and CFO is here’s how these are calculated. You know, while I use this query that I wrote, um, you know, to do it for this vendor, but I do it differently for that vendor because they have different parameters. Um, but you know, and so I have had literally no documentation other than my own internal memory as to how I did each of those things, I tried to consolidate and make one way, but it doesn’t work that way because everybody’s different. Every vendor is different. Um, so you need software to help with that. And then the documentation that I never had, which was one of the things that we, when I looked at it and said, oh, I can print out this document that says, here’s how we defined the rebate in our system as to how we achieve these things.

Scott Weir (32:06):

Here’s the basis, here’s the, you know, what we’re getting to it and all that’s technology, right? I mean, and, and we didn’t have it. We didn’t have that technology in house. Um, we weren’t able to do that internally. And our ERP could handle a basis of basic rebate. Oh, you get a flat percentage on purchases. Great. Try and stack on top of that. You know, other things, that’s where the ERP is fall down. They just don’t have the ability. And some of it’s, that’s not their focus. Their focus is sales collecting money and shipping product, right?

Scott Luton (32:39):

So you dropped a lot of goodness there. Uh, Scott and Kelly out, a welcome your take. But one of the things that you touched on is how it’s great having the right system gives you a great tool in the boardroom, uh, to help the leadership team better understand how we’re leveraging rebates or really anything. If you have the right tool that helps you communicate so better decisions can be made at the highest levels and recognition of progress and wins that are taking place and why, you know, communicating the why behind it, uh, great point there, but Kelly, beyond that, what else did you hear Scott share there in his recommendations? Wow.

Kelly Barner (33:16):

I think the keyword that Scott shared is finance, right? So when purchasing procurement, anybody truthfully gets pulled into explain something to the CFO and, you know, he or she is looking for the most up-to-date information and the answer starts with, oh, you know, about like that usually does not instill a lot of confidence in the person delivering the message, even if it’s not their fault, that they don’t have the tool in place to get the right answer. But it doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in the number either. And so being able to very easily, Repole the most accurate and up-to-date information, that’s where you can actually walk into a meeting like that with confidence, you have confidence in it, the people hearing it have confidence in the message. And then ultimately the most important thing is what decisions does that empower, right. You’re trying to make good decisions on accurate information. And if Scott has to go rerun all of his queries really, really fast before he goes into that meeting, just to give sort of a ballpark or, um, I’m pretty sure, kind of an answer that is just not going to cut it, given the dollar value that we’re talking about in most of these situations.

Scott Luton (34:24):

Great point, great point. I’m going to come to you next, Bob. I want to share two quick thoughts. So first off, Eric, thanks for joining us today and how true a spreadsheet is certainly better than an Abacus, a

Kelly Barner (34:35):

Positive point of view, Eric, thank you. It is better

Scott Luton (34:37):

Than advocates. That’s right. And thanks for joining us here. They would love to know where you’re tuned in from via LinkedIn, but Hey, you know, w w we don’t want to beat up too much on spreadsheets. You know, they have their place, they certainly have their place, but we’re talking about the next generation of rebates management and where you can exact the most value in what can be, as we’ve laid out thus far really complicated stuff, where it may deserve a lot more than a spreadsheet, if you really want to make it a bigger, more valuable aspect of the business. And then I want to also share this from Sarah. So true, minding the middle between the spreadsheet and the ERP is constantly evolving. What a great comment there, a paperless environment that can communicate between the plant for a plant floor and the corner office is essential.

Scott Luton (35:23):

Excellent point, Sarah, Sarah, you need your own show. That is a great comment there. Thanks for joining us here today. Let us know where you’re tuning in from there via LinkedIn. Okay. Bob man, there’s so much that I’m sure you want to touch on what we’ve shared over last couple of minutes, but what would you add when it comes to general recommendations, but also two part questions, general, general recommendations, and any advice that you would give in terms of data preparation so that we can, again, it’s back to speeding the velocity, speeding up the process of onboarding a rebate management tool. Bob,

Bob Gay (35:58):

What else say general recommendations when dealing with keeping up with, with competition? I think we all realize that it’s absolutely essential and the incredible functionality for an ERP. And the reason I’m touching back on this was a question from Chuck earlier was the incredible functionality from an ERP is essential, but they also, they, it is relatively structured in the way they do things because it is so much data and they are capable of so much enabled builds in the flexibility to be able to compete from a point of view from when you looked at, you’re not always trying to grow a customer or grow their purchases, you may already have 90, 95, 100%, but you may want to move them over to maybe a different category of purchases, or you’re simply trying to maintain that volume or blunt the competition. Like I said, there’s so many things that rebates are capable of, but in that same instance, when we talk about Excel and what Excel is capable of, we have, we, we have gotten to the point where we have dozens of Excel spreadsheets that are 50 columns and 150,000 lines long, anything past a hundred thousand lines, it just gets incredibly unwieldily.

Bob Gay (37:19):

So when you try to pull all of your data together, you need to think about it from a perspective of what would I do to make this manual process better. I need to wrangle my exceptions. I need to reduce the exceptions and maybe create a new program group on group customers, factoring your products, whether you’re trying to make it on deliveries to drive the, the particular, um, behavior that that you’re looking for for the customer. But what it really is, is breaking down your manual processes and then any manual processes, depending on how long you’ve had to do that, you’re going to have exceptions, and you’re going to have five different people that did the exact same task, five different ways, and you must break that down. And it all goes back to the old adage of good data and good data out, but bad data in bad data. You want to have to go through this with an ERP system, but doing it earlier, implementing earlier with a product like enable, we’ll help you find your faults a lot earlier than an ERP implementation would and a lot easier.

Scott Luton (38:30):

I love that. Hey Bob, when, whenever we write a book around here, I want you to narrate the audio audio copy, right? Hello. I can listen to you talk, read the briefing dictionary. I think so you shared so much good stuff there. And by the way, ocean is back with us. And I want to make a point VUCA. I said earlier, V U a folks, this is the age we live in volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Get to know that VUCA, VUCA acronym, things don’t happen. Like we want them to, um, so OCI, great to have you back. Um, anything you’d like to comment there on what Bob has shared and what you may have heard, uh, Scott share earlier when it comes to recommendations and, you know, moving forward, moving the organization forward.

Oisin Cooke (39:11):

Yeah, I think, I think it all comes back to those two, kind of, when you think about it competing ideas, right? We want everything simple. We want to make sure that things are defined and that everything is very clear and easy. We want a repeatable process for all people involved, but as complexity increases, that gets harder and harder to manage. You know, and, and as, as Bobby, you were just saying, you end up with spreadsheets that are enormously large. You end up with, you know, processes that, you know, can’t be repeated and you try and teach them to people. And everybody’s doing them slightly differently because of the way that it all works. And I think having that kind of defined set of parameters within, within a framework that will allow you to be as complex as you need to be, but also put the boundaries on, okay, well, you know, he need to do it within this framework.

Oisin Cooke (40:00):

You need to do it right in this way. And then it’s gonna, it’s going to allow you that kind of, best of both worlds, I think is, is the, is the way that it comes at that. And, you know, again, as, as, as Bob said, garbage in garbage out, you know, you have, you have to make sure that, you know, the point of which you’re starting from you’re, you’re, you’re saying, okay, let’s look at, look at everything that we’ve got here. You know, whether that’s from a data point of view, whether that’s from a, you know, a, a negotiation, a rebate deal, and analytics point of view, let’s make sure that we get it correct from the beginning so that, you know, further down the line, we can only get better,

Scott Luton (40:36):

Excellent point. And I want to pull out to one of the things that each of y’all has spoken to throughout, but Bob just mentioned, you know, you might have five team members doing the same thing, but doing it five different ways. Well, when it comes to velocity, when it comes to scalability, which Scott touched on earlier, and it really comes to digital transformation, quite frankly, we’ve got to automate some of this stuff, right. We’ve got to, to, to, to move faster and also have our team members, you know, where can, where can they add the most value? Where can we automate some of the blocking and tackling and really elevate the blocking and tackling, frankly, these are, these are the opportunities that I think platforms like enable and just, just digital transformation landscape that we’re all moving through. Those are opportunities that are out there. I want, I’ve got one more question for you. Oh, sheen. As we start to wrap up today’s conversation, uh, around, um, data, the data, the data, but Kelly, before we do that, uh, based on what we’ve heard just in the last 10 minutes, I think it was my favorite part recommendations between Bob and Scott and, and then OCI and kind of closes it. But what do folks really need to pay attention to in this, in this conversation around deal-making and rebate rebate management? Well,

Kelly Barner (41:44):

I think what I’m hearing is that it’s the value, as Scott said, it’s not necessarily in just getting to the number, getting to the information, it’s what actions that allows you and your organization to take. And so whether it’s going into the meeting with the CFO and having real confidence around an actual number that is right up to date, or truthfully, as Bob pointed out, this idea of automating so that you can manage by exception, exceptions are always going to exist because VUCA, right? So you’re always going to have that trying to say, oh, well, we’re just going to smash everything into that this box, ultimately that’s actually eliminating opportunity. So if we can automate things so that we’re dedicating our best resources, even if it’s fewer resources to just handling those exceptions in the best way possible, that is something we’re hearing across the whole source to pay line of processes, but I can absolutely see where it would apply to rebate management.

Scott Luton (42:41):

Excellent point. But going back to something you shared, man, don’t, we all wish we would have a Hawk every, uh, every, every so often. So we can’t smash things in global supply chain. Some of those days we need it, right. This little, little comic book reference for my son, Ben, who is, gosh, if you’re driving with Ben anywhere, you’re talking comic books and superheroes love you, Ben. Okay. Um, and yes, Jose 28 years of spreadsheets there. So fun, we can all relate to that

Kelly Barner (43:11):

20 years of somebody else’s spreadsheet. There’s nothing harder than trying to manage someone else’s spreadsheet. Cause our brains do not all work the same way. Right,

Scott Luton (43:20):

Right. Excellent point. Kelly and Jose, thanks for joining us. Listen to where you’re tuned in from, I see your Yankees hat, but let us know. Okay. So OCI and I want to get back to getting your observations around enabled customers that might find previous mistakes when you’re transferring all the data over from what can be older antiquated systems.

Oisin Cooke (43:41):

Sure. And, you know, I think just before I dive into this, I’m going to include spreadsheets and the antiquated systems things, because I think it’s, it’s just impossible to ignore, you know, I think in either way, you know, you’ve got to look at it, you’ve got to look at it from that complexity angle. You know, the exceptions thing is a really, is a really great point there, you know, you may get most things, right. But when you’ve got spreadsheets or systems or, you know, old, old ways of managing that, that haven’t been reviewed, that haven’t been audited that maybe you’ve got too many people in them doing things too many different ways, you know, just take a think about, you know, how much data and how much calculation and processing is required to calculate this sort of stuff. It’s not uncommon for us to see, you know, as Bob said, you know, a couple of spreadsheets that may have 50, 60, 50, or 60 different columns and then your, your row count will be in the hundreds of thousands, you know?

Oisin Cooke (44:36):

And, and you’ll be there hoping that there’s no, there’s no mistakes. It’s fine. If you can say yes. Okay. Sure. Most things are okay. But you know, with the kind of numbers that people talk about with the kind of volumes that people talk about a zero or two in the wrong place can mean a real, a real, kind of a real big, a real big problem. You know, you said earlier, there’s no kind of happy surprises. And we want to know, we want to know everything because we need the, the analytics. And I think, you know, it is, it is very common that people come to us and they say, yeah, we’re really confident. We’re really confident in, you know, here’s last year’s data. We’re getting up, we’re getting onboarded. We’re getting going with this last year is fine. Just use that as a sense check and we’ll produce a number and they go, wow, that’s different from our number. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s quite common. So

Scott Luton (45:27):

Well, you know, hope was mentioned again and, you know, hope again is a, it can be a very poor strategy, but in this Mooka environment, it’s even less effective folks. So you’ve got to take, you know, you gotta Nate into caught with right links, a few, uh, I guess about a month or so ago, shared a t-shirt isn’t with us. And he was talking, he was challenging folks to kind of do something different with their freight and kind of here we’re challenging folks to do something different when it comes to their rebate managements systems. And Nate said, folks, put those donuts down, get off the recliner, you know, put this thing in a headlock and take action because there’s opportunities to bring it a lot more value. So I love that. Uh, Nate, okay. So Kelly, we’re going to go around the horn and make sure everyone knows how to connect with Bob Scott, no sheen here in a minute, but what’s been, what’s been some of your favorite parts of the expertise that this panel has dropped on us here today.

Kelly Barner (46:19):

I think the thing I appreciate most, and again, I’m coming to this from a corporate procurement enterprise procurement perspective. Rebates are something that a lot of times is either official training or unofficial training. Like, listen, it’s such a hassle. It doesn’t come through, we can’t track it. It’s too hard. Don’t even consider it as an option. And that is a huge lost opportunity that sure. There is a lot of complexity that we started talking about, but with that complexity comes opportunity that if you can bring that as a lever into different types of negotiating strategies and account structures and contract formats, if there is a way to both incentivize your buyers and get your suppliers to work with you, to give you that, to work with as another type of result to deliver, I don’t think complexity is a good reason not to do it right, because as we’ve established, everything is now complicated. And so it’s no longer enough to say this is too hard. And so therefore we’re not going to consider it. I think the more viable path forward is finding the right tool for managing it effectively at scale, using automation where we can so that we bring that back onto the tables and option negotiations and contracts

Scott Luton (47:31):

Well said, you know, I bet folks, plenty of folks, total Malcolm McLean, we can’t do this. We can’t do any containerization of global freight, what too hard. Right. But as we all know that revolutionized freight still as we, as we have it here today. And while we still have plenty of challenges, it’s great that that aspect of standardization is part of the global freight system. Um, okay. No shortage of things to talk about. I want to go around the horn, uh, really have enjoyed, frankly, look I’m, I am not the rebate expert. I’ve learned so much, uh, in, in our conversations with [inaudible] through the previous webinar and in today’s live stream. And I really love hearing from the Bob and the Scott’s, um, uh, of, of, of the industry that are out there, you know, finding ways of using rebates and the next generation of rebate management to bring more value for their customers. I mean, that, that that’s some really good, good conversations there. So Bob gay, uh, who was mayor made sure that there was no corporate secrets on his whiteboard over his left shoulder before he came live. Um, how can folks connect with you and, and, uh, maybe pick your brain more on some things you’re doing at advanced auto parts?

Bob Gay (48:43):

Uh, the best way by far is, is LinkedIn. I have all of my information, uh, both company and personal email, as well as phone numbers on LinkedIn.

Scott Luton (48:53):

Wonderful. LinkedIn does make it really easy these days. Huh? All right. So let’s go to Scott Weir. So Scott, you may not want to be, uh, you know, after 21 years of, of, of making big things happen, uh, in industry and you’ve got a well-deserved break coming up. So, uh, folks, if Scott, doesn’t get back to you in a little while, I’ll give him a break and on the beach, right. Or racing, right. Auto racing. So Scott, how can folks connect with you?

Scott Weir (49:18):

Uh, they can get to me through LinkedIn or just email me directly at, uh, scott@weir.tv.

Scott Luton (49:25):

Just that easy. Yep. Hey Scott, what beach do you, uh, what beach do you love walking on the most? Where are you? Where do you think you’ll what beach we’ll see, we’ll see the most of your time in 20, 22.

Scott Weir (49:37):

Um, somewhere in Ecuador. Actually.

Scott Luton (49:41):

I love that, man. I love that. Well, Hey, send us pictures. Let’s stay in touch and congratulations again on one heck of a career. I appreciate you sharing some of your expertise here today, especially on, on deal-making and the practical side and, and the, uh, innovative side of modern rebate management. Okay. Oh, sheen a repeat guest. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback around what you’ve offered here at supply chain. Now, going back to the webinar and now the live stream, how can folks connect with you and, you know, take advantage of the art of the possible in modern rebate management show,

Oisin Cooke (50:17):

Same way as before Scott. So you, um, you can get me on LinkedIn or you can email me directly@asheendotcookatenable.com. Um, you can, you can share, um,

Scott Luton (50:29):

Handles out. Yeah. Let’s make sure, I think that’s in the show notes of the episode, if it, uh, of the livestream notes, if it’s not there, let’s go ahead and drop that in the comments. Uh, but folks will be wanting to share a cup of coffee with OCI as a plan for 2022. And as Bob called out in the comments, love what Kelly shared a moment ago. Rebates do not need to be a degradation of margin Kelly. Excellent, man. Again, it is the Anne rice of global supply chain right here, Kelly Parker. I love it. Um, all right, well huge. Thanks. And Kelly stick around for a second. I wanna, can I keep getting some of your key takeaways from this great conversation we’ve had with Bob Scott and OCI and big thanks to our panel. So Bob gay, again, manager, customer profitability, rebates and incentives with advance auto parts, Scott Weir, retired vice-president of purchasing at Thomas Somerville company and ocean cook a solutions consultant and excellent fire pit Tinder, uh, manager with enabled.

Scott Luton (51:30):

Great to see all of y’all have a great rest of your day. Thanks guys. Thank you. Thank you, Glenn, being here, what a great panel, what a great panel I love when, you know, clearly enable no pun intended or maybe pun slightly intended is enabling the next generation. Right. And it’s really cool that to have them back with us, but then to bring in, you know, Bob and Scott, who they probably have several full plates of things. So to find a way and kind of hear from them about how they have found that customized solution to not just do it, but do it better. I mean, this has been a pretty intriguing conversation for me.

Kelly Barner (52:06):

Well, and it was for me too. And it’s interesting. I actually haven’t thought about or talked about rebates in a while. I mean, this goes all the way back to my days of actually being a procurement practitioner, but I think it’s a valid reminder that for as many different types of products and services that we buy or types of suppliers, we partner with our contract structures, there is always another way to create more value that incentivizes the right behavior that helps the buy side and the supply side, I would be willing to venture that rebates are one of those things that a lot of procurement professionals haven’t necessarily thought about in awhile. And maybe it’s time to bring those back into the conversation, especially if there’s an easy way to manage it.

Scott Luton (52:45):

Undoubtedly, you know, um, there’s not much in this world. It’s not worth that, especially it hasn’t been revisited a long time. That’s not worth, uh, you know, a reintroduction or discovery conversation. So, uh, Hey folks, you can learn more really quick about enabled. They’ve got a really simple URL enable.com and let’s drop that white paper again, that you can download about, um, the evolution of rebate management, which you may look at and say, Hey, you know, it’s worth the conversation. So you’ll check that out. Um, Kelly on a different note, Dow P for procurement, right? Cause you’ve been that you’ve been there and done it as a procurement practitioner and now you’re helping other folks understand, not just procurement, really global business, but a lot of procurement stuff, right. What’s to come when it comes to dial P for procurement, uh, in the months coming up.

Kelly Barner (53:39):

Well, we were fresh off of two really great conversations, one around supplier diversity and the other one around supply chain risk. So I would actually say in the months to come given all of the VUCA we’re seeing in the supply chain, I think we’re actually going to see a lot more alignment between what’s happening around conversations in supply chain, as well as what’s happening around the same in procurement. You know, sometimes the two groups vary and talk about slightly different things, focus on slightly different things. I have a feeling in 2022, we’re going to be not only working in lock step, but pulling in the exact same direction. So this is a great time to be following dial pay if you’re just finding us,

Scott Luton (54:17):

It really is. And so this week’s been an interesting one on Monday, we talked cyber risks and across global business, certainly supply chain, that’s only going to grow, uh, yesterday. It was about risk management and also kind of the modern day approach to risk management. Right? And now today’s, uh, I think we learned a lot around the modern day approach to leveraging rebates and, and managing rebate program. So a great week of learning here today. Folks connect with Kelly Barner on LinkedIn and via, uh, DAPI for procurement and buyers meeting point, be sure to connect with ocean cook and the Ateam over at enable. You can learn more@enabled.com big thanks and connect, uh, with Bob and Scott Mann run perspective from folks that are doing it. Uh, so big, thanks to both Bob and Scott for joining us here today. Most importantly, uh, whatever you do take action. Deeds, not words. Hey, do good. Give forward. Be the change that’s needed on that note. We’ll see you next time. Right back here on supply chain. Now. Thanks for your buddy.

Intro/Outro (55:20):

Thanks for being a part of our supply chain. Now community check out all of our programming@supplychainnow.com and make sure you subscribe to supply chain. Now anywhere you listen to podcasts and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. See you next time on supply chain now.