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EricBess
Guest
I need some oppinions. I know that I can find a lot of hot air on this site, so I figured I would present my case here and let you lugheads help me out
Here's the deal. We can call this a hypothetical situation if it makes it any easier. I'm (hypothetically ) the owner of a small business that writes software for network marketing companies. Specifically, I have an engine which I customize for network marketing companies to calculate the compensation that they pay to their distributors.
Historically, software vendors in this industry provide a full package, including distributor genealogy maintenance, inventory tracking, orders, and commissions. The purpose of my company is to provide only that portion of things that we do best, which is the commission piece.
Occasionally, we find companies that are looking specifically for a compensation plan. However, the majority of our business comes from relationships that we have with other software vendors. Effectively, we subcontract with those vendors that have a full package, but realize that the overhead involved in customizing a compensation plan for each client is something that they would rather not tackle.
Currently, we have a relationship with two such vendors who send us all of their compensation plans.
I have a partner who works in another state. We "keep in touch" via the internet. My arrangement with my partner is that we both program, but that I do slightly more programming so that he has time to handle the bookkeeping.
Since the inception of the company, my partner has decided to take on more of a management roll. Basically, what that means is that he does even less programming, but he maintains relationships with the vendors (outside of their satisfied customers, that is).
A while back, my partner mentioned that there was a new vendor starting up and he had entered into talks with this new vendor about letting us program their compensation plans. He said that they were reluctant, but that he had managed to convince them to give us a chance.
Just recently, this vendor sold their first deal. My partner asked me to program the compensation plan. I agreed, but as I got into things, I realized that much of the database structure was undefined.
I asked my partner a series of questions and asked him to get me a contact person at this vendor that I could speak with. Over the next few days, a lot of information was revealed.
- My partner had attended a series of design meetings with this vendor.
- My partner had, to some degree, assisted in the database structure and therefore the architecture of the vendor's backend system.
- The vendor is using their relationship with my partner as a selling point of their software, as he is an "expert" in the industry.
- My partner has told me that this is a great opportunity to use the knowledge we've learned to make sure that this client has a great overall commission system. Remember, we write the commissions, but when it comes to reporting, check writting, returns, and so forth, we can only do as much as the system design allows. As such, we have a knowledge of many things that most companies do wrong, which gives us an edge in design.
So, keeping in mind that I just found out about this a couple days ago and it's been going on for nearly a year, I wanted opinions about how I should procede.
Feel free to ask questions if you feel there might be more information that I have left out. I tried to stick to the pertanent information only, but obviously, I've been in business for several years, so there is history (hypothetically, that is).
Here's the deal. We can call this a hypothetical situation if it makes it any easier. I'm (hypothetically ) the owner of a small business that writes software for network marketing companies. Specifically, I have an engine which I customize for network marketing companies to calculate the compensation that they pay to their distributors.
Historically, software vendors in this industry provide a full package, including distributor genealogy maintenance, inventory tracking, orders, and commissions. The purpose of my company is to provide only that portion of things that we do best, which is the commission piece.
Occasionally, we find companies that are looking specifically for a compensation plan. However, the majority of our business comes from relationships that we have with other software vendors. Effectively, we subcontract with those vendors that have a full package, but realize that the overhead involved in customizing a compensation plan for each client is something that they would rather not tackle.
Currently, we have a relationship with two such vendors who send us all of their compensation plans.
I have a partner who works in another state. We "keep in touch" via the internet. My arrangement with my partner is that we both program, but that I do slightly more programming so that he has time to handle the bookkeeping.
Since the inception of the company, my partner has decided to take on more of a management roll. Basically, what that means is that he does even less programming, but he maintains relationships with the vendors (outside of their satisfied customers, that is).
A while back, my partner mentioned that there was a new vendor starting up and he had entered into talks with this new vendor about letting us program their compensation plans. He said that they were reluctant, but that he had managed to convince them to give us a chance.
Just recently, this vendor sold their first deal. My partner asked me to program the compensation plan. I agreed, but as I got into things, I realized that much of the database structure was undefined.
I asked my partner a series of questions and asked him to get me a contact person at this vendor that I could speak with. Over the next few days, a lot of information was revealed.
- My partner had attended a series of design meetings with this vendor.
- My partner had, to some degree, assisted in the database structure and therefore the architecture of the vendor's backend system.
- The vendor is using their relationship with my partner as a selling point of their software, as he is an "expert" in the industry.
- My partner has told me that this is a great opportunity to use the knowledge we've learned to make sure that this client has a great overall commission system. Remember, we write the commissions, but when it comes to reporting, check writting, returns, and so forth, we can only do as much as the system design allows. As such, we have a knowledge of many things that most companies do wrong, which gives us an edge in design.
So, keeping in mind that I just found out about this a couple days ago and it's been going on for nearly a year, I wanted opinions about how I should procede.
Feel free to ask questions if you feel there might be more information that I have left out. I tried to stick to the pertanent information only, but obviously, I've been in business for several years, so there is history (hypothetically, that is).