It’s quite common for a Standards Development Organization (SDO) to retail its standards through large resellers — a marketplace approach promoted as a “one-stop shop” for consumers. The drawback? This model comes at a significant cost to SDOs in the form of double digital license fee percentages and reduced program control. What’s more, the marketplace model is heavily geared towards selling digital download of content and thereby limits buying options for an SDO’s customers.
The increasing number of resellers entering the space is another factor that’s been said to “muddy” the waters. For an SDO, intellectual property is their lifeblood. Releasing it in a diluted reseller space raises concerns around both security and market penetration.
At Gilmore Global, we’ve had considerable success helping our SDO customers rethink the reseller approach entirely to regain control of distribution in ways that reduce complexity and substantially increase sales margins.
To do this, we leverage our long history of managing ecommerce programs for clients located around the world. We’ve become experts in regional tax assessment and the associated logistics of shipping materials into various global markets. We’ve worked with dozens of the world’s largest companies to build stand-alone resale models — models that can be efficiently adapted to the SDO sector.
Many SDOs see the value of controlling distribution and in some cases have leased large fulfillment warehouses to support such an initiative. Yet those working with Gilmore Global can realize all the benefits of hosting their own fulfillment and ecommerce without the associated fixed costs and without the ongoing expenses and demands of managing staff, technology, and operational resources.
How are we so confident? We host more than 200 ecommerce sites for global clients (designed with their brand identity) and can fulfill orders across North America and through 13 facilities around the world. We can also set up credit terms so that known users or organizations can transact via PO versus strictly p-card. This way Gilmore Global assumes all credit risk directly with the pre-registered purchasing organization.
Of course our SDO distribution programs can also encompass the sale of certification and training materials. In such cases, pre-registered training consultants (individuals, organizations, trade schools, etc.) use secure access to purchase learning materials at unit costs dictated by the SDO. As with the sale of standards, Gilmore Global takes full responsibility for the financial transactions as well as production and inventory management of all related materials.
By processing all transactions, managing distribution, and providing 100% visibility to our SDO clients, the Gilmore Global model virtually eliminates all cost accruals and generates a clear revenue stream. And everything is fully scalable to fit market conditions and seasonal activity levels.
For more about our distribution programs for the SDO sector, contact Gilmore Global today.
