Concept of distribution (outsourcing) and economic importance
The global reach, expanded volume and speed of transactions of a modern business make it necessary to resort to other businesses or independent professionals to carry out production, organization and promotion of its products. These persons do not belong to the staff of the company, but develop an independent activity, which aims to find customers and mediate between supply and demand, i.e. between the company and said customers[1]. In this way, the company replaces its own organization by forming a production or distribution network for its products, reducing, in this way, its operating costs, but also expanding its geographical presence more easily with access to persons with knowledge of the respective local market[2].
The recourse to independent businesses or professionals to promote the company's products or services and mediate between its customers is called distribution, while distribution systems are called the organizational forms of the contractual link between the business and the intermediary. In fact, the company can appeal to more than one intermediary, of different or the same form, who act freely and independently of the action of the others, forming, in this way, a complex distribution network[3], with a uniform appearance, economic and competitive policy, which acquires its own autonomous dynamics, resulting in the maximization of the business's trading power.
Individual systems
Mediation between the business and its customers is carried out by a group of independent entrepreneurs as intermediaries, either on an occasional basis (eg brokers) or on a permanent and permanent basis (eg distributor in a distribution contract). Intermediaries, who are connected to the company with stable and lasting ties of trust, make up the company's distribution network and are integrated into it to a different degree depending on their form.
Four basic formations of stable and permanent mediation between the company and its customers have emerged in practice, namely the commercial agent, the ordering agent, the distributor in the distribution contract, and the franchisor[4]. Higher distribution systems differ from each other according to the distribution of commercial risk, the remuneration of the intermediary, the degree of integration into the network, as well as the quality and type of products or services distributed. Nevertheless, the peculiarities and variety of transactions form in practice and case by case forms of mediation, which contain elements of various systems, so it remains for the implementer and interpreter of the contract to classify them, each time, in the appropriate category, according to the will of the parties , good faith (articles 173, 200 AK) but also the fundamental features of the formations, so that they can then be included in the corresponding system of applicable legal rules.
In parallel with the distribution systems, in which the relationship between the trader and the intermediary is characterized by stability and duration, independent entrepreneurs offer mediation services opportunistically and to an indefinite number of persons. These persons, such as the agent, the broker and the customer, are not connected to the company with stable ties of cooperation and trust and, therefore, are not part of its distribution network, but provide their services opportunistically and to whoever, as the case may be, ask for them[5].
[1] Dimitriou I. Androutsopoulou, The contract of commercial agency, Athens 1968, p. 5.
[2] Evangelos Emm. Perakis/ Nikolaos K. Rokas, General Part of Commercial Law – Securities, publications Nomiki Bibliotheki AEVE, 2013, p. 245.
[3] Evangelos Emm. Perakis/ Nikolaos K. Rokas, General Part of Commercial Law – Securities, 2013, p. 280.
[4] George I. Babetas, The commercial agency in the law against restrictions of free competition, publications Ant. N. Sakkoula Athens - Komotini, 2003, p. 2.
[5] Evangelos Emm. Perakis/ Nikolaos K. Rokas, General Part of Commercial Law – Securities, 2013, p. 282.
Thomas Steph. Summer
English 
Greek 
French 
Chinese 
German