Sales agency management system

Abstract

To provide an agent sales management system that determines a fair and reasonable profit-sharing ratio for an agent sales company between a service or a commodity supply company in agent sales.SOLUTION: An agent sales management system shares a workspace with constituent companies in a commercial distribution on a cloud using the Internet, cooperates to perform tasks such as cost management, sales management, customer management, and sales management for a target service or commodity, sets a same dimensional management index (KPI) for each company on the workspace, automatically calculates profit-sharing based on a fixed relationship ratio between management indexes (KPI) of each company, and timely updates a rate of sales commission.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the determination of rewards for the results of agency sales that mediate B-to-B (business-to-business) commercial transactions targeting products or services.

Background Art

[0002] The agency sales here refers to the activity that intervenes between sellers and buyers so as to more productively and efficiently conduct "a business that activates transactions between third parties and provides a basis for starting a new business through the supply of products or services that anyone can receive under clear conditions".

[0003] For agency sales that connect sellers and buyers in commercial transactions, a reward for sales results is a prerequisite. The fee forms of such rewards are of two types: fixed reward type and performance-based reward type, and a composite type of them can also be selected. The fixed reward type is, for example, a fee form in which a predetermined reward amount is paid as a monthly fee. On the other hand, the performance-based reward type is a fee form in which a reward is paid according to results such as customer acquisition and order reception. In the former fixed reward type, since it is paid regardless of the results, if the results are small, it is disadvantageous for the seller, but even if the results are larger than expected, there is no need to pay a supplementary reward. The latter performance-based reward type is a fee form in which a reward is paid according to results such as customer acquisition and order reception. When the expected results are not achieved, there is no need to pay extra costs. Instead, when a certain result line is exceeded, the fee becomes higher than that of the fixed reward type.

[0004] In the performance-based reward type, generally, the agency margin is set at 20% and the referral margin is set at 10% simply in many cases. However, these are determined by rules of thumb and negotiation, and there is a problem that they are not based on any logical distribution law.

[0005] As a solution, methods have been considered to establish indicators for determining a fair profit-sharing rate between companies supplying goods or services and their distributors. However, when business models and structures differ, it has been difficult to determine profit distribution using common indicators. For example, it is easy to understand that the key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring business results will be completely different for a company that has large-scale manufacturing facilities due to a significant initial investment and supplies products manufactured there, compared to a company that has no capital investment, only an office, and operates as a distributor. In particular, in international trade, determining the margin for distributors while taking into account the different business practices of each country is extremely complicated, and troublesome negotiations are required before an agreement can be reached. [Prior art documents] [Patent Documents]

[0006] [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Publication No. 2011-161203 [Patent Document 2] Canadian Patent CA2296607A1 [Patent Document 3] U.S. Patent US20090281845A1 [Non-patent literature]

[0007] [Non-Patent Document 1] "A Summary of Issues Regarding Economic Calculations for Projects, etc.," by Junya Onishi and Hiroshi Umeda, published by the General Affairs Research Department, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance, Discussion Paper No. 19A-04. [Overview of the project] [Problems that the invention aims to solve]

[0008] The classical objective of economics was to clarify the laws governing the distribution of wealth among the three classes—workers, capitalists, and landowners—and to elucidate methods for increasing national wealth through division of labor and cooperation. Recently, with the stagnation of productivity, the impact of a society with inequality has begun to be viewed as a problem, and policy issues such as achieving a "virtuous cycle of growth and distribution" have once again come under discussion. In commercial transactions, the distribution of profits among constituent companies within a trade flow should also be determined in a way that contributes to the healthy growth of the economy, but there is a challenge in that there is not necessarily a rational distribution law. According to Patent Document 1, a profit distribution method that implements volume discounts is proposed by multiplying the commission not by the order amount, but by multiplying it by a burden rate that decreases as orders increase, but this too cannot be said to be based on theory.

[0009] According to Patent Document 2, a computer system allows for the easy and accurate determination of compensation for sales performance over a specified period via a user interface, thereby motivating salespeople. However, while this is useful for simple relationships such as between a company and its salespeople, it cannot be applied to methods of profit sharing between companies within a commercial transaction. According to Patent Document 3, it is possible to determine the correlation between key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring the performance of multiple businesses within a single company and create a KPI network (KPI tree) using a computer. However, since there is no logical correlation between KPIs for measuring the performance of businesses within other companies, this cannot be applied to methods of profit sharing between companies within a commercial transaction. As stated in Non-Patent Document 1, regarding economic calculations, there are so many points to consider regarding each calculation technique and how to utilize them that it is nearly impossible to set common key performance indicators (KPIs) for all companies. [Means for solving the problem]

[0010] The most important feature of this invention is that it allows constituent companies in a commercial transaction to share a workspace on a cloud using the internet, where they can collaboratively perform tasks such as cost management, sales management, customer management, and sales management for the target services and products. Furthermore, it allows each company to individually set management indicators (KPIs) of the same level on the workspace and automatically calculates profit distribution based on a certain relationship ratio between each company's management indicators (KPIs). [Effects of the Invention]

[0011] The profit distribution system of the present invention has the advantage of not only being able to calculate profit distribution in real time over a certain period, while ensuring transparency of information from the start of sales activities for a service or product, through sales, and until the completion of sales, but also being able to determine a fair and agreeable profit distribution rate by taking into account past sales activity results and the present value of future sales activities, as well as including a function to revise the conditions of the profit distribution rate. [Brief explanation of the drawing]

[0012] [Figure 1] Figure 1 is an explanatory diagram illustrating how to implement a shared workspace on the cloud. (Example 1) [Figure 2] Figure 2 is an explanatory diagram showing how to implement the dashboard within the shared sales management system. (Example 1) [Figure 3] Figure 3 is a graph showing the commission rate, which changes in accordance with the supplier's KPIs, under a constant profit distribution rate. [Figure 4] Figure 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the calculation method for profit sharing in Example 2. [Modes for carrying out the invention]

[0013] By individually setting management indicators (KPIs) of the same magnitude for each company, rationally determining the relationship between them, calculating the value of the agency margin as performance-based compensation from that relationship, and determining a fair and agreeable profit distribution, the objective was achieved without cumbersome negotiations. [Examples]

[0014] Figure 1 is a system configuration diagram of one embodiment of the present invention, which has a shared workspace on a cloud 32 accessible via a network 31, used by overseas suppliers 33, overseas factories 34 belonging to the suppliers, and sales agents 35, and also allows purchasing companies 36 limited access.

[0015] On Cloud32, companies sharing the platform can perform tasks such as data entry, data analysis, and data viewing related to cost management, sales management, customer management, sales management, and weekly sales activity reports. The data here is composed of costs that can be directly assigned to the target service or product, and costs that are common to other services or products, which are appropriately allocated. Since the main focus of this invention is the determination of profit distribution, a description of the hardware will be omitted, but the components are IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.

[0016] While the period used as the basis for calculating management indicators varies from company to company, including quarter-year, one year, contract period, or economic life, it is desirable for each company to use management indicators based on the same period when calculating profit distribution rates. Various management indicators can be used, such as the return on investment (ROI), payback period (PB), internal rate of return (IRR), and net present value (NPV). However, to determine the ratio of management indicators between companies, it is desirable to ensure that the dimensions (time, length, weight, monetary units, etc.) of each indicator are the same (dimensionally sound). This will result in a dimensionless ratio. For example, the relationship between the ratio of the supplier's ROI to the distributor's ROI and the commission can be calculated using Equation 1 below. Here, ROI does not have to be in the strict sense; for example, cost-effectiveness or customer lifetime value (LTV) divided by customer acquisition cost (CAC) can also be used. Furthermore, to prevent commissions from increasing due to the accumulation of ineffective sales activity expenses, Table 1 shows an example of calculating fair sales activity expenses by clearly indicating the results of the sales activity process and scoring those results. For ease of calculation, the supplier's profit value is set before paying commissions to the distributor.

[0017] [Number]

[0018] [Table 1] [[ID=J17]]

[0019] In Table 1 above, the number of face-to-face meetings, web conferences, and email receptions actually conducted through business activities are organized in a matrix by department and job level, and scores are obtained by multiplying the respective numbers by weights. The total score quantifies the progress of business activities. To obtain 1 score, a unit price is set as the man-hours and costs required for preparing presentation materials and prior coordination with related departments. Here, 1 score is 10,000 yen. In this example, for business activities with more waste than the standard, the actual expenses will exceed 895,000 yen, but for the calculation of profit distribution, 895,000 yen based on the standard unit price is used.

[0020] [[ID=J22]] The value of the ratio R in Equation 1 will be referred to as the commission rate. When this is set to 0.04, if the business activity expenses of the distribution company relative to the investment amount of the supplying company are 5% and the ROI of the supplying company on an annual basis is 0.44 (44%), the distribution company margin is calculated to be 0.05 (5%). Figure 3 shows the transition of the distribution company margin as the above ROI changes. In this way, the profit contribution degrees of the supplying company and the distribution company become clear, and by determining the commission rate in advance, the commission on sales as a fair and agreeable profit distribution rate can be determined. The commission rate (distribution company margin) and the indicators on which its calculation is based are displayed on the digital dashboard 21 in Figure 2 and are publicly available on the cloud. The approval of the commission rate displayed in the commission rate display 22 is such that the responsible persons of Companies A and B click the approval buttons 23 and 24 on the digital dashboard 21 respectively, and the profit distribution within a separately determined accounting period is executed. [Example]

[0021] In the early stages of a project, there may be no sales of the service or product for several months or even years, resulting in no profit for the supplying company. Substituting this into Equation 1, no matter how much the sales agent works, the commission would be zero. To encourage sales activities during this period, Figure 4 shows a method for calculating profit distribution by converting the future profits relative to the expected sales value of the service or product in question into present value and using that as the source of funds. This is an intermediate profit distribution between performance-based and fixed-fee models, and it allows for a rational determination of commissions, making it very useful in new projects. Customer lifetime value can be calculated by determining the expected annual profit from forecasts of production and sales over the economic life (e.g., 5 years), and expressing it as its present value at a discount rate of 4%. On the other hand, when sales activities are progressing at the so-called pipeline meeting stage, the expected value of reaching a contract is 0.6 (60%), so by multiplying the present value by the expected value and then dividing by the economic life of 5 years, an expected annual profit of 5,400 thousand yen can be obtained. Substituting this into Equation 1 makes it possible to achieve a fair and rational profit distribution even in the early stages of a project. [Examples]

[0022] If a distributor's productivity significantly improves, and they complete each phase of their sales activities with lower-than-planned scores, and even reach a contract with a lower-than-planned final score, it is reasonable to reflect this productivity improvement in profit sharing. The value obtained by dividing the planned score by the actual score can be defined as productivity improvement if it is greater than 1, and productivity decline if it is less than 1. By multiplying this value by the previous project's commission rate (ratio R in Equation 1), the distributor's margin can be increased and set as the new commission rate for the next project, resulting in a fairer and more rational profit sharing rate. On the other hand, if a supplier's productivity improves, enabling them to produce products with less investment than planned, the distributor's margin can be reduced by dividing (1 - investment reduction rate) by the previous project's commission rate, resulting in a fairer and more rational profit sharing rate for the next project. [Industrial applicability]

[0023] By determining a fair and reasonable profit-sharing rate for sales agents from the start of service or product sales activities through to completion of sales, businesses can be facilitated to deliver good services or products to customers quickly. Quantitative profit-sharing calculations are also applicable to business with overseas companies that have different business practices. [Explanation of symbols]

[0024] 21 Digital Dashboard 22. Commission Rate Display 23 Approval button 24 Approval button 31 Internet 32 Cloud 33 Overseas suppliers 34 Overseas factories 35 Distributor Companies 36 Purchasing company

Claims

[Claim 1] This sales agency management system utilizes a cloud-based internet platform to share workspaces among participating companies in a commercial transaction chain. Within these workspaces, cost management, sales management, customer management, and sales management tasks for the target services and products are collaboratively performed. Its most distinctive feature is the ability to individually set key performance indicators (KPIs) for service and product suppliers and their distributors, unify the dimensions of these KPIs, automatically calculate profit sharing based on a fixed relationship ratio between each company's KPIs, and timely set and update the sales commissions that distributors receive.

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