Different Stages of Deal Management

To this end, businesses can benefit from Deal Management, which is a strategy or tool that allows them to define deal parameters such as customer history, product status, discount level, and operational constraints to be taken into account during the sales review process and thus maximize margins, profits, revenue, and market share.

For instance, deal management software may provide visual indications to enable sales representatives to quickly compare a prospective offer to past accomplishments. Extra visual indicators may promote items or offer signs that a current discount level is beyond the norm and, therefore, needs additional approvals. Transaction management solutions may greatly boost deal velocity by reducing bottlenecks (such as human approvals) and increase profitability by improving the likelihood of up-sell and cross-sell by making this information immediately available to the sales representative.

Seven stages of Deal Management 1. Plan process

Deal management preparation is crucial. Create a company-wide transaction management procedure that fits your goals and resources. Your transaction management approach should be adaptable and simplify all trade agreements. When establishing your plan, consider your company's transactions, who is accountable for what phases, prior challenges, and the resources required to achieve it. Once you can answer these deal management questions, you're ready to start. Without a clear procedure in your firm, your agreements may not be advantageous, the financial benefit may not be achieved as quickly, reducing cash flow, and you may have audit concerns.

2. Execution phase

Implement your deal management strategy after outlining it. Generally, this requires using an automated deal management system like Enable to set up and execute B2B transactions and rebates. Importing data and enrolling vendors into a consolidated platform is part of this. Onboarding is a critical element of implementation since everyone must know your objectives and how to utilize the deal management software. If your employees and suppliers are inexperienced with either, they might cause deal management challenges and mistakes. This also entails making sure your team follows the new approach to guarantee dependable and effective deal handling.

3. Pre-Deal

Now that you've developed your deal management procedure, create new transactions with your trade partners. Negotiating a trading program that meets your demands and boosts ROI. A significant aspect of this step is ensuring your commercial staff has the data required to negotiate lucrative deals. This entails giving them prior transaction and rebate data and a projection for the next period, then letting them simulate potential deal situations. After both parties sign the trading program (typically by e-signature), the following step begins. Keep track of the audit trail, who handled the documents, and when for future audits and disputes.

4. Transition

After a trade agreement is established and signed, it's given to the deal's executors. Negotiators and managers are usually distinct persons. Some firms employ a specialized rebate manager or accountant to monitor and collect profits. In this stage, it's crucial to provide a seamless transfer, so everyone engaged in transaction management understands what to do to stay compliant. Walk everyone through the deal's specifics to clarify roles, responsibilities, and milestones. This will secure the deal's genuine advantage and reduce differences between what was negotiated and what happened.

5. Closing

After creating and configuring trading software, make a trade. This is the last step in establishing commercial agreements. A transaction is what 'earns' your company rebate in Enable. Poor deal management may cause difficulties for your organization; therefore, it's crucial to assess your transactions, so your finance team accrues appropriately and doesn't misstate the company's financial status. With Enable, you can watch your new deal and quickly uncover methods to direct purchase and sales behavior to optimize profit. Knowing how near (or far) you are from specific reward levels and what the anticipated benefit would help you decide the minimal expenditure that would raise your profits significantly.

6. Pre-renewal

There are various ways an agreement with your commercial partners might terminate. You may reach the termination date, it may need to be renegotiated due to outside factors, or you may end it early. Some of these options to terminate a transaction may involve fines or conditions. Close-to-expiration transactions should be monitored. So you can understand what a transaction requires and decide whether to stop or extend it. This requires comparing the predicted benefit to the actual benefit and recording this alongside the general development of the firm so you may renegotiate or cancel a contract based on evidence. A deal management software with automatic alerts and notifications ensures you never miss a renewal or other critical date. This guarantees that you have broad reporting and analytical capabilities to drive renegotiations.

7. After-deal

If you don't renegotiate, you must still take certain steps. Termination conditions or final invoicing may apply. Then archive the contract. By categorizing it, you can see what you'd change afterward. A post-mortem may help you enhance your deal management procedure. Why did this trade yield less than expected? Were our goals missed, or were there other factors?

Deal management: what's next?

The transaction management process demands meticulous planning and monitoring. Deal management blunders may lead to big delays and lost refunds. By following the above deal management steps, you may gain a better hold on the process, minimize errors and problems, and collect rebate revenue more consistently and reliably.

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