Aiming to bring time savings, accuracy, and improved profitability, AgVend announces Program Management, which can be added to its retail platform software.
Manufacturer to retailer programs are often pointed to creating administrative workload for the retailer as well as have been plagued with time lags, inaccuracies, and other issues.
A year ago, AgVend starting working on the research and development for its offering to automate the process and bring new insights into the retail business.
Here’s how it works:
- Retailers upload a PDF of the program sheet (with product details and pricing information) provided by the manufacturer
- All data and information regarding the terms are kept confidential and private to the retailer account and its permitted users
- As purchases and sales are received via the ERP integration, the transactions are matched against eligible programs
- The estimated rebate calculations are updated as the transactional data is received
Beta Tested With Retailers
The AgVend team has been working with retailers to develop and test this offering and its accuracy.
“We’ve been focusing and making sure we can access the data, being able to configure the programs and validate that those calculations were accurate,” says Ashley Taylor, program management lead.
As the season progresses, earnings against the retailer programs are tracked with early fills, returns, and other key sales data.
Instead of manual data tracking and siloed datasheets, AgVend aims for this to bring improvements to workflow and automation.
“In the ag retail business today, mis-calculated accruals are a major pain point–no one wants an end-of-season surprise,” continues Taylor. “What makes it even more difficult is the considerable manual effort required to calculate and track rebates. It’s incredibly difficult to take a proactive approach to rebate management, without the help of technology.”
Turning Complexity Into Strategic Advantage
Having the real-time data on product sales can give a retail business new insights, says AgVend CEO Alexander Reichert.
“We are arming our ag retail partners with increased visibility into their business, but also the tools they need to scenario plan and take action with that information,” he says. “A big thing that we heard in our research with retailers was that even if they could know that selling an extra 1,000 gallons would hit this new rebate threshold, they didn’t have the ability to reorient their teams in season to make it happen.”
Reichert says retailers can be more responsive in managing the sales strategies with the insights from Program Management. It can also be used to send out updates to their entire sales force.
Program Management is an added feature to the AgVend platform at an additional fee with the user’s yearly subscription.
