Suppliers traditional relationships with customers

The ends of the supply chain are fragile and the traditional definitions of customer relationship management and effective supplier relationship management are not designed to be value network adaptors. As value networks mature, new adaptors will evolve with a redefinition of enterprise architectures from the outside-in. 

The supply chain paradigm demands effective partnering outside the enterprise. In some ways, this is easier than working only internally in some ways it is more difficult. It is easier because these partners are probably suppliers and customers with a stake in your success. Clients also tell us it is sometimes easier because they can side-step conflicting internal priorities and politics. It is often more difficult because relationships with outsiders have traditionally been at arm s length. Whatever the case, there will be an increase in partnering arrangements of all kinds. 

Figure 17.1 models the traditional relationship between suppliers, their customers, and end-users. The model reflects a transaction-based relationship, with the buyer-seller linkage driven by price and other conditions such as quality and delivery. But often, as the opening quote indicates, price is dominant. Ultimate end-users, on the right, have many suppliers, sometimes called vendors these suppliers, in turn, have their own... 

The traditional supplier-customer relationship has been limited to contact primarily between the customer s buyer and the supplier s salesperson. Other functions, such as information systems, are kept very much at arm s length. Indeed, the customer s buyer argues that dealings with the supplier should only go through him or her in that way, they ensure that sensitive communications, such as those affecting price, are limited to a single channel. 

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