VentureTech Adds Vendor Rebate Tracking Program For Members

The program was piloted with Hewlett-Packard and Ingram Micro expects to add many other vendors as part of the tool, according to Ryan Grant, director of channel marketing at Ingram Micro.

"We've heard for years that there are too many programs [from vendors] and VARs struggle with them. Salespeople are spending a lot of time to do it themselves. They're going through the program and trying to find the dollars and doing the claiming," Grant said at Ingram Micro's VTN Spring Invitational in Hollywood, Fla. "Programs change every quarter and it's nearly impossible to manage all those programs and understand where all the dollars are at."

Ingram Micro plans to leverage its own back office skills in tracking vendor programs and offer it to the VentureTech members for $2,000 per year. The fee also includes access to Ingram Micro resources to help answer questions, Grant said.

"It was designed to be an extension of your sales organization. We want you to check with us to make sure you're getting the dollars on the front end or the back end to stay competitive," he said. "Every 30 days, we'll assess where you are tracking toward rebates. It's a good conversation on where your status is and where you need to be."

Grant noted that one of the VARs in the pilot almost lost $50,000 in rebates because he didn't know he needed to buy two more products to achieve a target. "He was able to do that with this [tool]," he said. "This is not a fly-by-night program. This is a long-term strategy. We've cracked the code on visibility on the programs and will continue to go down the path."

Alan McDonald, president and CEO of AllConnected, a Simi Valley, Calif.-based VAR that piloted the program said it frees up resources that he had trying to track the multitude of programs from vendors.

"We're 19 people and we don't have dedicated resources to manage vendor programs that we deal with. There's risks in not doing so. If you don't keep up, there are situations where customers that have been with us for long time, through one method or another, get alternative pricing and we're danger of losing the deal because don't know about the programs [that another VAR might have worked into a competitive price]."

Knowing where he stands in terms of reaching volume targets also helps AllConnected plan his pipeline, McDonald said.

"Knowing not just what deals are coming up but what direction is changing and how we can best align our business with vendors and programs in place is a benefit," he said.