We are pleased to announce that our MD Andrew Butt has been shortlisted for the EY UK Entrepreneur of the Year (2018) Midlands awards in their "Disruptor" category for its DealTrack innovation.*

Profitability for suppliers to the building industry — including building materials, plumbing, HVAC and electrical distributors — is often very closely dependent on the amount of rebate they can negotiate and claim.

We’re seeing more and more evidence of companies who rely on their suppliers to tell them what rebates they should claim!

This is surprising given that rebates can be the largest contributor to profit for buying groups and a significant percentage for companies in the building materials, retail and wholesale distribution sectors.

This may raise a few Financial Directors’ eyebrows, but given the complexity of rebate deals in some organisations and the lack of robust systems to track purchases against those contracts, it’s no wonder that some companies struggle to understand what rebate claims they should be making.

If profit is the most important word in the business world then trust must run it a very close second. In the new collaborative economy the trust between businesses and their trading partners is key to their ability to move forward as one with transparency.

A damning report from the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA), has today seen Tesco, Britain’s biggest supermarket chain, pay the price for poor supplier rebate management, after delaying supplier payments and failing to raise accurate invoices.

Tesco’s accounting scandal has brought the importance of the collaborative economy and the consequences of falling short in collaborative business planning into focus.

Landmark Wholesale Buying Group is a major buying group that provides a centralised trading and marketing operation on behalf of its members — leading independent wholesalers. The group represents members throughout the UK and has a turnover of £1.8 billion. One of their key roles is to organise the complex process of managing member overrider payments.

In modern business context, the phrase 'we're in this together' is no soundbite but a new way of trading, where the benefits are visible on a day-to-day basis and on the bottom lines of businesses.

In this new collaborative economy, B2B cloud software has played a key role in creating a leaner and more cohesive way of doing business to the benefit of all parties involved. B2B cloud software is more than just an enabler or a part of the machinery, it is an engine that is driving businesses forwards through an ethos of collaboration, transparency and efficiency.

DealTrack is delighted to share the success story of one of its key partner clients by highlighting a remarkable period of recognition for distributor DCS Europe.

The company has been named in the Sunday Times Top Track 250 league table of Britain's leading mid-market private companies with the biggest sales. DCS ranked at number 220 with sales of £148.4 million.

The business was also given prominent place in the Design Council's special report Leading Business by Design, which sought to explore the current and potential role of design in business and education in collaboration with Warwick Business School.

Ramping up of grocers code is an inevitable step in the development of co-efficient trading.

New supermarket watchdog Christine Tacon certainly set her stall out when she announced her desire to fine retailers a percentage of their turnover for mistreating suppliers.