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Can one understand that all of our manufacturers - and even some of our key accounts - want to "plan" the new business year with us? But why? The only way I can make sense of this is that manufacturers need to plan their resources: for production, possibly necessary assets, personnel, etc. These all have long lead times. The funny thing is that not one plan for 2012 with any partner is ready yet. The first meetings will take place in January. Wouldn't it make more sense to plan for the coming year before it starts? Last year, we received the last plan for the year in April from our manufacturers. Assuming that personnel and production changes have an average lead time of four to five months, we could have saved ourselves the trouble in the first place. Let us be honest, this is how things work: Nobody really wants a "plan". A manufacturer sets his goals for 2012 at some distant headquarters. This is then split between sales areas, and only when those sales departments actually achieve the goal will they receive their bonus. In fact, at some point, they only need to decide which distributor must achieve which turnover. This is not so much active planning as it is planned economy :) From a distributor's point of view, this is pointless and it doesn't matter when the plan is announced. Simply adjourn the meetings until December, and we will be able to make the plans in such way that we achieve them by a close margin - everyone gets their bonus and there are no more surprises!