Today's corporate barter is a tool of corporate strategy.

For many firms, even those that have leveraged it successfully multiple times, corporate barterThe creation of value by exchanging a client's unwanted or undervalued asset for the promise to purchase over a period of time from the corporate-barter company a defined set of goods and/or services, called fulfillment. (Sometimes mistakenly referred to as Corporate Trade.) is a reactive strategy – a way to get rid of an unwanted asset or escape an underperforming investment.

But consider the case of the fashion house* that sells through nationwide department stores, singled out by a trucking union for a two-week wildcat strike just as it starts to ship its spring line. Unable to pull its magazine ads, the brand disappoints thousands of potential customers and the season is a flop despite critical raves from fashionistas and the press.

With a consistent semiannual ad buy, the house can offer a barter firm the leverage it needs. As for disposing of the remaindered clothing, the brand has suffered more than enough damage already – having the inventoryWhile this can refer to a client's physical inventory of merchandise (which, if it represents an undervalued asset, could form the basis of a corporate barter transaction), in the corporate barter world, inventory more commonly refers to a supply of advertising time/space purchased in advance by the barter company, which client companies use as fulfillment to complete their side of a corporate barter agreement. show up on discount racks is unacceptable. A barter firm known for selling high-end assets discretely is hired. It recommends several under-the-radar sales channels, including chains of specialty shops in northern Europe and Japan, invitation-only overrun sales in Manhattan and Beverly Hills and a two-minute, eco-slanted infomercial on an indie-film cable channel. Crisis averted. And the fashion house now uses corporate barter as a tool to control excess inventory through out-of-channel sales.

*Names and brands withheld to maintain anonymity.