With 50 members and an annual external turnover of 1.4 billion euros, FEGIME Deutschland GmbH & Co KG is Germany’s leading buying group of medium-sized electrical wholesalers. FEGIME’s main tasks include the coordination of purchasing conditions between leading suppliers of electrical goods and its members from the electrical wholesale community. The buying group’s structure of members and suppliers demands the use of a comprehensive software solution that can reliably and transparently depict all purchasing conditions, claim settlements and bonus distributions. “We carried out extensive research in order to find a complete solution that would minimise the number of required interfaces, process our complex member structure and data situation and react flexibly to changing circumstances. BONSAI’s rebate management offers all the functionality we need from a single source. IBB’s continuous, competent and quick services have exceeded all of our previous experiences”, says Samantha Raab, head of administration, accounting and controlling at FEGIME. “It took us less time to get familiar with the software than it did with other solutions. When we process claim settlements, we can now produce several data outputs with a single data entry. The software always follows a common thread and is continuously traceable. Errors which are prone to happen with manual data entry are therefore minimised. Our work has become significantly easier and quicker with BONSAI, and the software has become the benchmark for all of our other solutions.”

TRANSPARENT REBATE MANAGEMENT AND TRACEABLE CLAIM SETTLEMENT

Side by side with transparency in the best purchasing conditions for its members as well as quicker claim settlements and bonus distributions, FEGIME’s tasks also include the recommendation of optimum purchasing volumes. “In an industry as complex as ours, it is absolutely mandatory that a software solution reduces the number of required interfaces and automates business processes. We know the industry and are fully aware of the fact that the coordination between trade associations and suppliers is very complex. BONSAI processes all data in full compliance with legal requirements and revision-safety. Reactions to enquiries or audits can be made in a timely manner, and the data is therefore protected. BONSAI greatly enhances the traceability of claim settlements with suppliers and bonus distributions to electrical wholesalers”, says Christian Zeidler, Managing Director at IBB.

“Before we implemented BONSAI, IBB’s staff asked critical and precise questions that made us re-think our processes. As a result, the software solution was perfectly fitted to our requirements. This underscores the high level of industry know-how and the real sense of interest in the customer requirements – elements we have highly missed in working with other software providers”, Raab adds.

SIMULATION TOOL TO RECOGNISE POTENTIALS

IBB’s BONSAI solution is much more than a software for depicting current purchasing conditions as well as settling and distributing bonuses, it can also be used as a planning tool to recognise future potentials. The software automatically generates projections based on real figures and can simulate possible future scenarios. On the basis of real numbers, it automatically makes forecasts and can simulate potential future scenarios. “Going forward, we want to use this functionality even more. By thinking ahead of our suppliers, we can identify the best agreements for our members”, Raab explains.

FEGIME has been using BONSAI since 2019. In the course of the first half of 2019, the system was implemented and adapted to the requirements of FEGIME. “We have been facing many critical voices internally since it took us a long time to find a software that would meet all of our requirements. The implementation of BONSAI really changed our view. The willingness to help as well as the quick response times of IBB’s support team are particularly noteworthy”, Samantha Raab, head of accounting at FEGIME, concludes.