Benefits by automatisation and transparancy in rebate management
MBS Baumarkt Service GmbH is a purchasing alliance which negotiates and settles rebates for 58 hagebaumarkt as well as WerkersWelt stores in southern Germany. Faced with such a high number of locations and suppliers MBS has been relying on the BONSAI software by IBB since 2021 in order to calculate revenues of purchasing agreements correctly and automate processes such as dunning and reporting as well as an in-time distribution of agreements. Switching to BONSAI meant an enourmous organisational relief for MBS - errors were minimized and workforce in in the accounting and purchasing departments could be optimized.
Until 2021, MBS Baumarkt Service GmbH was the purchasing alliance responsible for 15 hagebaumarkt stores in Munich and the surrounding area and approximately 500 suppliers. The management of purchasing and delivery agreements, bonus settlements and distributions, dunning processes, reporting, and generation and mailing of documents had previously been handled manually or via accounting systems. With the expansion of the alliance in 2021 to 58 stores and 600 suppliers, the time was ripe to bring about an organisational, system-supported professionalisation.
AUTOMATED AND TRANSPARENT REBATE MANAGEMENT
“Due to the rapid increase in purchasing volumes, a solution had to be created that supports, digitises and automates purchasing management at all levels. Our accounting department has to deal with over 4,500 different agreements among 600 suppliers, so managing agreements manually would generate too many errors,” says Alexander Großen, project coordinator at MBS Baumarkt Service GmbH. “Our choice was an easy one: BONSAI from IBB convinced us. IBB knows the DIY sector and understands exactly what a purchasing alliance like ours needs. No other software could be tailored so individually to our requirements. BONSAI creates a transparent overview of all agreements and we can control the purchasing volumes during the year to maximize the bonus revenue in total.“
INDIVIDUAL SOLUTIONS INSTEAD OF STANDARD SOFTWARE
“Every company is organized differently. That is why it is especially important for us at IBB to listen to our customers and understand the complexities of their structure. Especially for purchasing alliances like MBS, which have to deal with a large number of different suppliers, you have to understand the industry to be able to offer efficient solutions. We have been specialising in this for years,” says Christian Zeidler, managing director of IBB Adaptive Solutions. Another key factor for MBS was compatibility with various accounting software and document management systems. We didn’t want a standard software that was simply loaded onto our server without being adapted to our workflow,” explains Alexander Großen, from MBS. “IBB even helped us to design interfaces with other applications that were already in use in the company. This made implementing BONSAI straightforward and gave us a single source solution.”
ENORMOUS RELIEF AND COMPETENT SERVICE
The time savings are another major advantage of the BONSAI software. “Due to the increase in the number of stores to be managed, we would have reached our limits in terms of personnel if settlement had been done manually. BONSAI has led to a significant reduction in workload, so that our employees can now take care of the essential issues,” says Alexander Großen. In addition to the time and personnel savings, the reduced number of errors compared to manual methods impresses most. “BONSAI gives us the certainty that nothing is distributed to the alliance partners that has not already been paid. In addition, we observe an improved payment behavior due to the automation of the dunning process and we do not forget anything,” so Alexander Großen. According to Großen, the flexibility and easy usability of the software is also reflected in the support provided by IBB: “The introduction to the software as well as the ongoing support by IBB is exemplary – this is customer support exactly how you want it to be. When we have questions, we get immediate feedback and solution-oriented support; the cooperation is exemplary networked and well structured. If something changes in our company, BONSAI can be adapted quickly and easily,” concludes Großen.
About MBS:
As a service company within the HEV Group, MBS provides central functions and consulting services, such as advertising and marketing, facility management, accounting or business services for affiliated companies. Since opening its first store in 1979 – at that time still within the OBI concept – the HEV Group has developed into the region’s no. 1 DIY store operator in terms of turnover, sales area, number of stores operated and employees. Close cooperation between the group’s stores and within the hagebaumarkt system, coupled with central support from MBS, enables regional flexibility and independence while at the same time benefiting from the strength of a strong group of companies in cross-company processes. For the HEV Group and other DIY store operators, MBS acts as a so-called purchasing alliance which negotiates master agreements with suppliers of the alliance participants for the supply of goods and/or services to MBS or the companies it represents.