Creating Market Development Funds
Market development funds (MDFs) are created for a variety of reasons. For example, an alliance partner might agree to a fixed MDF as part of its alliance agreement, or you can do joint marketing with a partner and create an accrual MDF to which you contribute one percent of the partner’s sales.
When you create a new MDF, you must specify which partners are participants in the fund and you must specify the fund type.
There are three types of MDFs:
Fixed Fund. A fund that has a specific amount of money allocated to it.
Accrual Fund. A fund that has money allocated to it based on the partner’s performance. For example, partners can accrue funds based on the number of units sold of a specific product or product line, based on a percentage of their revenues, or based on other metrics you define.
Mixed Fund. A fund that has both a fixed and an accrual element. It begins with a specific amount of money, and it also accrues additional money depending on partner performance.
When you create the Fund record, you must specify the type of fund. This determines where funds are added.
To create a new MDF, you perform the following tasks:
About Fund Design Lists
From the Fund Design screen a number of different fund design lists are available. The following table describes each list.
List |
Description |
|---|---|
My Fund Designs |
This list displays all fund designs owned by the user. |
All Fund Designs |
This list displays all fund designs of the partners in the same organization of the user. |
All Fund Designs Across My Organizations |
This list displays all fund designs of the partners in the same organization and sub-organizations of the user. |
All Fund Designs Across Organizations |
This list displays all the fund designs of the partners in all organizations. |
Creating a New Fund Record
The first step in creating a new MDF is to add a new Fund record.
To create a new Fund record
Navigate to the Fund Design screen.
In the My Fund Designs list, add a new record to this list.
Enter information about the new fund in the new record and the More Info form, as shown in the table below.
Field
Description
Name
Enter a name for the fund (up to 50 characters) for your own use.
Type
Choose Fixed, Accrual, or Mixed to indicate how funding is allocated.
Fund ID
A unique identifier that is generated automatically.
Active
Indicates whether the fund is currently active, that is, whether partners can make fund requests against this fund. Generated automatically based on the start date and end date.
Locked
Lets you lock the fund record so no one can update it.
Period
Optionally, use the Pick Period dialog box to choose a predefined period from a picklist defined by the Siebel administrator, such as 2005 or Jan. 2005. If you select a period, the Start Date and End Date fields are filled automatically.
Start
The date when a partner can begin applying for money from this fund.
End
The last date when a partner can apply for money from this fund.
Target Amount
The amount of money targeted to be accrued to a fund. For a fixed fund, the amount of money agreed to in a fund.
Description
A text description of the fund for your own use. Enter up to 150 characters.
Total Credits
The total of all deposits into the fund. Read-only field calculated by the Siebel CRM system.
Total Debits
The total of all the approved withdrawals from the fund (actual amounts granted to partners). Read-only field calculated by the Siebel CRM system.
Fund Balance
The balance in the fund, calculated as Total Credits minus Total Debits. Read-only field calculated by the Siebel CRM system.
Fixed Credits
Credits from fixed deposits into the fund.
Accrual Credits
Credits from accruals to the fund.
Adding Partner Companies as Fund Participants
The second step in creating a new MDF is to add the partner companies that are fund participants to the fund. Partners must be added to the Fund Participation list because only fund participants (and employees at the brand owner company acting on their behalf) are authorized to spend against a fund.
Sometimes, partners contribute to MDFs for joint marketing activities with the brand owner. In these situations, the partner is usually the only participant in the fund.
Similarly, because accruals are used as incentive programs for partners, you generally have only one partner in each accrual fund. If you added multiple partners, one partner would accrue funds and the other partners could spend the funds accrued by the first partner.
If you add a partner company as a fund participant, there must be a partner manager defined for that partner company, so the partner’s fund requests can be routed to the partner manager for approval. For more information, see Registering the Partner Company
To add a partner company to an MDF
Navigate to the Fund Design screen.
Select the appropriate fund design list and drill down on the name of the fund to which you want to add the partner company.
Navigate to the Fund Participation view.
The Fund Participation view appears.
In the Fund Participation list, add a new record.
Enter information in the new record’s fields about the partner company’s participation, as shown in the following table.
Field
Description
Partner
In the Pick Channel Partner dialog box, choose the participating partner company.
Target Amount
Enter the target amount for this partner to receive from all its fund requests to this fund.
Period
Optionally, use the Pick Period dialog box to choose a predefined period, such as 2005 or Jan. 2005. When you do select a period, the Start Date and End Date fields are filled automatically.
Start
Enter the date when this partner can begin applying for money from this fund. The default value is the start date of the fund.
End
Enter the last date when this partner can apply for money from this fund. The default value is the end date of the fund.
Description
Optionally, enter a description (up to 150 characters) of this partner company’s participation in this fund for your own use.
Adding Funding to the Market Development Fund
The third step in creating an MDF is to add funding to it. The type of funding you add depends on the choice you made in the Type field when you created the Fund record:
Fixed. If the fund type is Fixed, add the funding amount in the Fixed Fund Administration view.
Accrual. If the fund type is Accrual, add the funding amount in the Accrual Fund Administration view.
Mixed. If the fund type is mixed, use both the Fixed Fund Administration view and the Accrual Fund Administration view to specify the amount of funding it has. The mixed fund contains the sum of the fixed and accrual funding that you specify.
Use the following procedure to add fixed funding to an MDF.
To add fixed funding to an MDF
Navigate to the Fund Design screen.
Select the appropriate fund design list and drill down on the name of a Fund that is Fixed or Mixed.
Navigate to the Fixed Fund Administration view.
In the Fixed Fund Administration list, add a new record.
Enter information about the fixed funding in the new record., as shown in the following table.
Field
Description
Name
A name for this funding for your own use, such as Initial Funding or Q2 Added Funding.
Amount
The amount of funding allocated to this fund for this transaction.
Period
Optionally, use the Pick Period dialog box to choose a predefined period, such as 2005 or Jan. 2005. When you do select a period, the Start Date and End Date fields are filled automatically.
Start
The date when partners can begin spending this funding. If this record is the initial allocation of money to this fund, then this date is the same as the start date for the fund. If this record is a supplementary allocation, it could be a different date. For example, if you have a yearly fund and you allocate extra funding for the third quarter, the start date for the extra funding could be the first day of the third quarter.
End
The last date when partners can spend this funding.
To add accrual funding to an MDF
Navigate to the Fund Design screen.
Select the appropriate fund design list and drill down on the name of a fund that is either an Accrual or a Mixed type.
Navigate to the Accrual Fund Administration view.
In the Partners list, select the partner company that accrues funding, or add a new record to add a new partner company to the list.
In the Accrual Definition list, add a new record.
Enter information about the accrual definition in the new record, as shown in the image below.
Field
Description
Type
Select the type of component on which the accrual is based. The default options are as follows:
Orders (accrued funding based on all the orders of the partner)
Product Line (accrued funding based on the orders of the partner for a specific product line)
Product (accrued funding based on the orders of the partner for a specific product)
Other options might have been added.
Product Line
If you choose Product Line in the Type field, in this field’s dialog box, choose the product line on which accrued funding is based. If you do not choose Product Line as the type, this field is disabled.
Product
If you choose Product in the Type field, in this field’s dialog box, choose the product on which accrued funding is based. If you do not choose Product as the type, this field is disabled.
Period
Optionally, use the list to choose a predefined period, such as 2005 or Jan. 2005. When you do select a period, the Start Date and End Date fields are filled automatically.
Start
The date when funding begins to accrue to this fund.
End
The last date when funding accrues to this fund.
Base
This field lets you tier funding by specifying the base amount at which the accrual begins. For example, if you want to give the partner accrual funding only after it sells $1,000,000, you can set the base at $1,000,000. Or, if you want to give the partner 1% of the first $1,000,000 it sells, and 2% of everything exceeding that, you can create one fund record with a base of $0 and a rate of 1% and a second fund record with a base of $1,000,000 and a rate of 1%. The second fund record would give an additional 1% beyond the 1% in the first fund record.
U/M
Select the unit of measurement on which the funding is based. For example, if you choose Pallet, Bag, or Dollar, the partner accrues the amount in the accrual rate field for each pallet, bag, or dollar of your product ordered. The units available here can be determined in the LOV administration view under UNIT_OF_MEASURE.
Accrual Rate
Enter an amount of funding that accrues for each unit sold.
Estimated Volume
Enter your goal, the volume of sales targeted for this accrual.
Actual Volume
Enter the actual volume of sales for this accrual.