By Juergen Backhaus
Lead Consultant at Stellar
Recently Stellar engaged in a high-profile rebates project. The total sum the client needed to refund to their customers was a considerable amount of money. Also, the time frame to turn this around was very ambitious. So, we had to consider these important points:
- Important we get it right the first time
- Provide auditability
- Testing and tracking
We have helped other customers in the past with their rebates processes numerous times. This is a standard service we provide alongside others like product profitability. So, we knew that we could bring IP from other engagements to really add value to the project. Even though we were aware this one-off process has its own challenges.
An easy formula for a water-tight project
It is important to take all the necessary precautions that we and our customer are sure the process is water-tight and fully traceable. Then we can be sure that we refund the correct rebate to the respective customer. An easy “formula” to success for projects like this would be:
Why Stellar?
As mentioned earlier we have experience from numerous rebates projects at many customers and can provide automation for a faster turnaround and the assurance that it would be done accurately, rigorously tested and reconcilable.
In this example, the technology stack used was AWS. However, Stellar has successfully worked with multiple technologies, to mention a few: Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and WhereScape. We tailored our service to match the customers’ existing technologies or we can make independent recommendations.
In the end, the ultimate indicator if an engagement was successful is how satisfied the customer is and how smoothly the well thought out end to end process ran. With this customer, the work that the Stellar team did, augmented the customer’s project team. The result was very few customer interactions and very few rejections of the rebates. A seamless tested and reconciled process with daily progress reporting created trust with the customer and the outcome was a success with paying customers. This only helped further cement them as a customer-centric company, fostering a high level of trust.
Adding value in the future
Throughout designing the process, the Stellar team kept in mind that they should make it a repeatable process because even though this was not about regularly applied rebates, there is a high likelihood for similar projects in the future. This means that besides the immediate benefit for the project at hand the process designed makes any further rebate projects easier to tackle and will continue to add value in the future.
Please get in contact and let us know how Stellar can help you with your rebates processes or any of our other service offerings.
