In November last year, we shared some of Gartner’s tips for developing a strategy for improving the collaboration with your suppliers. Picking up where we left off, the next step is now to roll out this strategy.
The biggest challenge facing companies aiming to benefit from working more closely with their suppliers is the skepticism with which suppliers may view the endeavor. They might, for example, suspect that it’s simply a negotiating tactic to surreptitiously push prices down further. From Gartner’s point of view, it is therefore not enough only to tell suppliers that they are strategically important – the words need to be backed up by action.
For this to happen, a company first has to gain a clear understanding of which changes it is prepared to undertake as an organization to reflect a more collaborative approach with its suppliers. For key suppliers, strategic business reviews at the management level may not be enough. Contracting and performance assessments also need to be reviewed and adapted to benefit fully from closer collaboration.
In addition, Gartner provides a raft of other practical tips to help companies introduce a new strategy for more effective collaboration with suppliers.
Find out more by downloading Gartner’s insightful paper “The Journey to Effective Supplier Collaboration – Strategy Launch” free of charge from our website.
