A channel proposal is often introduced through the new business it could bring. The territory, the expected units and the revenue forecast give the discussion a shape that a board can recognise quickly. In our 2022 proposal, that shape was 4,000 chairs and ₹26 crore of possible revenue over two years. The numbers were useful, but they were not the whole proposed relationship. A restriction on spare-parts access would have changed how existing service partners could support products already outside our factory. The future sales account was asking us to make a decision about an older installed relationship.
Read the restriction beside the forecast
The proposed intermediary wanted exclusivity that extended beyond new-chair distribution. Its draft terms would restrict parts access for existing partners in the relevant territory. From the new channel's perspective, control over the complete commercial relationship had a logic: it wanted the associated activity to come through its own arrangements. Our sales colleagues saw an opportunity to make demand more predictable. Neither position was irrational. The question was whether the company should accept those terms after considering what they would require us to change elsewhere. I did not think the forecast could answer that question on its own.
A service relationship can be easy to omit because its value does not arrive as one large new contract. It appears in smaller requests, familiar parts and the continuing work of people who know particular products. That dispersed form does not make the commitment imaginary. Our network contained 42 partners whose arrangements had developed around access to the equipment and parts they supported. A new restriction could change their practical ability to do that work. Before signing, we needed to understand the proposed change as part of our own decision, rather than treating it as a future operating detail for somebody else to resolve.
I asked for the spare-parts condition to be considered separately from the appeal of the new-chair forecast. This did not mean ignoring commercial opportunity. It meant making clear which condition we were being asked to accept in exchange for it. We sought a reservation for existing service relationships. If the prospective partner had accepted it, the resulting proposal would have needed its own assessment. It did not accept the revision. At that point, continuing required us either to accept the restriction or to depend on exceptions that had not been agreed. A preferred outcome in a negotiation is not a term in the contract.
Some colleagues suggested we could manage exceptions as particular service requests arose. I understood why that seemed practical: the new opportunity was visible and the future requests were not yet individually known. But the proposal would have established the restriction first and left its consequences to later persuasion. We would have placed ourselves in that position knowingly. I wanted the executive decision to state whether that was acceptable, rather than allowing it to disappear inside a general expectation that our teams would find a way. Resourceful people are not a substitute for a commercial right the company has declined to preserve.
Count the relationships absent from the bid
The existing partner or product user may have no place at the meeting in which a new channel is selected. That absence creates a leadership task. We need to identify which relationships the proposed agreement changes, what those parties currently depend on and which commitments the company has actually made. The exercise should be specific. It does not require inventing a duty to satisfy every possible preference, nor assuming that no arrangement can ever change. It asks the enterprise to understand its starting position before it trades away flexibility or access in pursuit of another opportunity.
In mobility equipment, a manufactured item can remain important long after its initial sale. The equipment, the parts and the relevant professional support are related without being interchangeable. A manufacturer's distribution agreement does not determine which chair is appropriate for an individual or replace skilled assessment and fitting. Equally, leaving those decisions with professionals does not remove the manufacturer's responsibility for its own commercial terms. I cannot use the limits of my clinical authority as a reason not to examine a spare-parts restriction that my company is being asked to sign. The boundary should clarify my responsibility, not make it vanish.
The financial discussion also needs discipline. We could not prove that declining the proposed agreement protected a particular amount of future revenue. Nor could we attach an invented measure of improved repairs or health to the decision. Our known financial facts were the uncontracted ₹26 crore forecast and ₹31 lakh already spent on the bid. Keeping existing access arrangements had a strategic rationale, but the rationale did not turn every possible benefit into a realised result. The board deserved to know what we had chosen and what evidence was still absent, including where the case rested on a commitment we wished to preserve.
There is a useful distinction between refusing to quantify what is unknowable and refusing to examine a trade-off. We still had to understand the proposal, the expected economics and the service consequences as far as the available evidence allowed. We also had to accept that the chosen course would disappoint colleagues who had worked on the opportunity. An honest decision does not become costless because its reasons are sound. The bid expense remained, the forecast did not convert into orders, and sales had to continue building other relationships. I wanted that consequence retained when the case was later described as an example of our judgement.
Explain the opportunity you actually declined
We declined the arrangement after the spare-parts condition remained unresolved. That statement is narrower than saying we rejected all exclusive channels or that every integrated distributor creates a problem. Different terms, products and existing commitments could lead to a different conclusion. The useful question is which part of the relationship a proposed exclusivity covers and what that means for people already relying on the business. A chief executive should be able to explain the particular restriction and the alternative considered, rather than relying on a broad statement about always putting service first.
For a board, I would want the account to connect four things: the opportunity being considered, the contractual condition causing concern, the relationships affected and the consequence of the chosen response. Those belong in the same decision record. If the opportunity changes later, the company can then see what would need to be different before reconsidering it. This is more useful than preserving a story in which management was simply brave enough to say no. The decision should remain open to examination, including whether we understood the terms correctly and whether another workable arrangement was genuinely available.
The case changed how I read a sales forecast. I still want to know its units, assumptions and financial contribution. I also want to know which continuing relationships it asks the enterprise to reorganise. A spare-parts clause may look small beside a large two-year opportunity, yet it can determine what an earlier sale means in practice. Bringing that clause into the main discussion does not diminish the commercial work. It makes the work complete enough for a chief executive and board to decide what the company should promise, and which opportunity it is prepared to leave uncontracted.