Onboarding a new distributor: the first 90 days.

Before signing ends

• Registration plan: who files, who holds it, and the expected date. Decide the holder now; see who holds the registration.
• Import set-up: importer of record, licences, customs codes, Incoterms, and the label and instructions in the local language.
• Price list and margin, built from the end-user price. See distributor margins and pricing.
• Opening stock: first order, demo and evaluation units, who pays and who owns them.
• Agreements: the distribution agreement and a quality agreement, signed together.

General information, not legal advice. Local law varies; take local counsel before you sign the agreements or settle who holds the registration.

Days 0 to 30: set up and train

• Kick-off: both teams, the year's plan and targets, and a contact sheet of who to call for what.
• Product and clinical training for reps, specialists and customer service.
• Quality onboarding: complaints, vigilance, traceability, recalls, storage and transport. In the EU, the MDR and IVDR require distributors to pass complaints and suspected incident reports to the manufacturer immediately and to keep a register of complaints, non-conforming devices, recalls and withdrawals.
• Reporting set-up: the sell-out template, the shared deal tracker and the dates of the monthly review.
• Target accounts: a named list, split by rep, agreed in writing.

Days 31 to 60: sell together

• Joint calls: you or your clinical specialist with each rep, on their accounts.
• First cases, demos or evaluations at the accounts most likely to buy.
• Local launch: a customer event, a mailing or a stand at a national congress, in the local language.
• First stock turns: what moved, what did not, and why.

Days 61 to 90: review and adjust

• First review, run like a short quarterly business review: pipeline, first orders, gaps.
• Rep certification: a product test and a role play for every rep on your line.
• Plan changes: accounts, targets, stock levels and the support you give.

From day 91 the distributor moves onto the normal rhythm in manage distributors like a sales team.

The training curriculum

Worked example: a point-of-care analyser in Saudi Arabia

A maker of a point-of-care blood analyser signs a distributor in Saudi Arabia, where the Index lists 109 independent distributors with in-vitro diagnostics on record. The steps are an example. Before signing, it settles that an SFDA licensed authorised representative it chose holds the marketing authorisation, and that the distributor imports under it; the Saudi Arabia page shows the holder options. In the first month it trains four reps and two application specialists and runs a test complaint through the distributor's system. In the second, it places evaluation units in three hospital labs. At day 90, two evaluations have turned into orders, and every rep has passed certification.

The onboarding kit checklist

• Signed distribution and quality agreements.
• Price list, ordering codes and lead times.
• Copies of registration certificates, labels and instructions for use in the local language.
• Training deck, product test and role-play scenarios.
• Clinical evidence summary and competitor comparison.
• Brochures and case studies in the local language, and brand rules.
• Demo and evaluation unit plan.
• Complaint and vigilance forms, with the contacts to send them to.
• Sell-out and pipeline reporting templates.
• Target account list and contact sheet.

How to know it worked

By day 90: every rep on your line is certified, sell-out reports have arrived on time twice, there are first orders from accounts that were not already the distributor's customers, the pipeline covers next quarter's target, and a test complaint has gone through correctly. Miss two of these and onboarding is not finished, whatever the calendar says.

Common mistakes

• One training day, then silence.
• No sell-out reporting from day one, so the first real data arrives at the first miss.
• Opening stock sized for hope rather than the target account list.
• Leaving quality set-up until the first complaint.