Topics › Shaping commercial situations
Harmonizing terms across markets and units
Over the years, comparable customers have ended up with very different terms, negotiated one deal at a time. Now you want one consistent system, and every customer who stands to lose a benefit, along with the account manager who granted it, has a reason to resist. The same pattern appears when one customer is served by several countries or units.
What is at stake
A harmonization can create value through consistency, transparency and better control. But every change redistributes value: a benefit removed from one customer has to be justified, compensated or replaced, and the account manager who negotiated it has something to lose as well. What matters is telling commercially justified differences from terms that persist only because they were once agreed.
What typically goes wrong
- The new system is designed at headquarters and presented to sales as finished.
- The change is announced to all customers at once, and the largest ones set the tone for the rest.
- Nobody has worked out which customers lose and which gain, so every objection comes as a surprise.
- Account managers are measured on volume and keep granting exceptions to protect it.
- Exceptions are allowed “for now” and become the new standard within a year.
What changes for you
- A consistent terms system that differentiates between customer segments on clear criteria.
- A clear view of who gains and who loses, and a plan for each customer who loses.
- A sequence of customer conversations that starts where success is most likely.
- Sales teams that can explain and defend the new system because they helped shape it.
How we approach it
We first establish what customers receive today, what they contribute in return and which differences in terms have a sound commercial basis. On that foundation, we design a consistent system with clear rules for differentiation and exceptions. We involve sales teams in shaping it and assess the impact on individual customers before any changes are announced. Together, we then prepare the customer conversations and agree who can authorize exceptions, and on what basis.
What we clarify first
- Which differences in terms are backed by what customers deliver, and which are simply history?
- Which customers stand to lose most, and what is each of them worth to you?
- Who in sales has granted exceptions, and what would it take for them to let go?
Tell us what’s at stake
Thirty minutes, no pitch. You describe the situation. We tell you honestly whether we can help, and how.