Territory and Margin Protection: How We Allocate Regions

The most common question in a first call is “can I have exclusivity for my country?” The honest answer is: sometimes, and it depends on what you are putting on the table. This article explains the trade in plain terms, because a territory given away carelessly is worthless to the partner who receives it.

Levels of protection

We work with three levels, and partners can move between them as the relationship develops:

Note the ordering. Exclusivity is earned on delivered units, not on ambition expressed in an email. Two units in a year is a low bar intentionally: it proves the partner can close, install and get paid.

How a target is set

We build the annual target from your number, not ours. The conversation goes like this: how many stations or terminals did you supply last year, what share of them had a vapour source worth recovering, and what share can you realistically convert in the first twelve months. If the arithmetic produces three units, the target is three. A target of fifteen that nobody believes in produces exactly the same result as a target of three — except the partner stops answering emails.

Targets are set in units for the first year and may move to revenue in later years, once the product mix is known.

Margin protection in practice

• Published band, not a quote lottery. Every partner in a region sits inside the same band for the same model. Partners in different regions may sit in different bands, and we do not disclose one region’s band in another.
• Registered project protection. If you register a project in writing, we will not quote that end user directly for ninety days. This applies to integrators as well as distributors.
• No channel conflict through our own website. Enquiries that arrive from your territory are forwarded to you with the customer’s message, not answered and then handed over as a done deal.
• Price changes with notice. Cost movements in steel and membrane elements are real. Changes reach you with sixty days’ notice and never apply to orders already confirmed.

What happens when a target is missed

It is not revoked on the first quiet quarter. The sequence is: a conversation about why, a revised plan if the reason is external (a tender delayed, a currency collapse, a customer’s financing falling through), and only then a step down to the previous level. What does end a territory immediately is silence — a partner who stops reporting and stops answering, while the exclusivity keeps other candidates out. That is the one behaviour we treat as a breach.

Small territories are fine

We would rather sign a partner for one province, one island group or one industry segment than sign a country to someone who cannot cover it. Several of our longest relationships started as a single-city agreement and expanded when the numbers justified it. If you are not sure you can cover a whole country, say so at the start — a smaller territory you can actually work beats a larger one you cannot.