Controlled Distribution

Controlled distribution is a term from business administration . This is a permanent design of distribution systems. The aim is the manufacturer's control and control of the end-user-oriented coordination between the manufacturing company and the contract- bound distribution bodies .

Forms of controlled distribution are primarily to be understood as a response on the part of consumer goods manufacturers to the increase in power and the increasing emancipation of the retail sector. For years now, trading companies have been striving for marketing leadership in the distribution channel in addition to logistics leadership and see themselves to a greater extent as integrators and less as pure distribution intermediaries or as an "extended arm" of industry. As a result, industrial companies see themselves increasingly with u. U. confronted with objectives and ideas of the distribution intermediaries that are contrary to their own strategic orientation, which gives rise to an increased interest in exerting more intensive influence on the downstream processes and companies and their policies with regard to their own objectives, in particular their own ideas in the context of branded goods distribution, to control. This can be done using vertically integrative distribution systems or forms of secured distribution as a bypass strategy for retailers and vertically cooperative distribution systems or forms of controlled distribution.

In the consumer goods practice, a variety of forms of vertically controlled distribution systems or contract systems can be recorded. These range in a broad interpretation of terms from simple framework agreements based on partnership, as they are u. a. are used in trade marketing , through vertical sales ties, exclusive agreements, through to authorized dealer systems, franchise systems and agency systems. It should be noted, however, that the differences and demarcations between the different forms of controlled distribution in corporate practice are often blurred.

See also

• Distribution policy
• Vertical Marketing
• Secured Distribution

literature

• Zentes, Joachim / Neidhart, Michael / Scheer, Lambert: HandelsMonitor Spezial: Verticalization - Industry as a retailer. German specialist publisher, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, ISBN 3-86641-026-3
• Zentes, Joachim / Neidhart, Michael: Secured and Controlled Distribution - Industry as a Retailer. in: Zentes, Joachim (Hrsg.): Handbook trade: Perspectives - strategies - case studies. Gabler, Wiesbaden 2006.