This Case Study focuses on ArkusNexus’ collaboration with Garvin Promotion Group (GPG) in the design and development of a world-class Dealer & Distributor Portal for a subsidiary of Asia based rubber and major car, truck and off-road tire manufacturer with 40 Distributors and over 250 Dealers in multiple locations throughout North America.

This client was already running consumer oriented rebates through GPG, a company that manages multi-million dollar rebate promotions, coupons, gift cards, and promotional items for a variety of industries. The client’s Marketing Team asked GPG and a team of ArkusNexus Nearshore Software Developers to design and develop a portal within a 6 month period that would support an Associate Network program, which aimed to incentivize Dealers to sell more tires through recommendations to their consumers, thereby increasing overall market share in the region. This portal was deployed on GPG’s multi-tenant Cloud based Channel Incentive Platform known as ChIPs.

Frequent changes to marketing plans and shifts in program criteria were the main development challenges. These were addressed by designing an innovative and accessible platform that was flexible enough to allow the Marketing Directors to readily adjust and update the different components of the program.

Given the ambitious 6 month development timeframe, ArkusNexus’ Team Extension acceleration driver via a managed software development team (pod) proved to be an ideal solution for the company’s technology needs. The Core Team in charge of developing the Dealer & Distributor Portal included:

• 3 Subject Matter Experts from the Client’s Marketing Department
• CIO from GPG, who acted as the Lead Business Analyst (Product Owner)
• 1 Arkus Team Lead and Scrum Master
• 5 Arkus Software Developers
• 1 Arkus Quality Assurance Engineer

for the Dealer and Distributor Promotions Portal

INNOVATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES

INNOVATIVE
END-USER EXPERIENCE

Business requirements and careful consideration of end-user experience were incorporated into the portal's innovative design. From the outset, developing clean, scalable code that allowed for flexible functionality and subsequent Product Expansion was fundamental.

The five Core Features included:

Code loss prevention (CLP)

Marketing programs will frequently change, often on a Quarterly basis, and sometimes even during the course of a Quarter. To address this, the team needed to make the platform as flexible as possible to allow the Marketing Directors to pull the various levers as they desired to adjust program criteria. This required quick team integration, as well as constant feedback and communication with SMEs to validate requirements.

Examples of these adjustments included:

• Doubling or tripling the Rebate for a brand new tire being introduced to the market.
• Increasing the Rebate to clear out inventory, or alternatively ratchet back the payout as inventory levels fall  due to older products being discontinued.
• Increasing or decreasing Points earned by an entire Brand or for a specific SKU.
• Offering a special promotion for a single day, like Black Friday.
• Offering special Channel Incentives to tie in with special Consumer Promotions being run during the same time period in order to double the effect of promotional marketing efforts.
• Tying a Consumer Rebate Promotion with a Dealer Incentive Bonus to maximize their ability to generate new sales.