SCM Institute

Services

Supply Chain Management Institute​ Services

Partnership Meetings

Building and sustaining tailored business relationships with key customers and suppliers can lead to a competitive advantage. However, partnerships are challenging to manage. Too often, managers enter into a relationship with another member of the supply chain without either side clearly identifying their expectations. This is the primary reason why these relationships fail to meet the goals of one or both sides. With this in mind, we have developed a model that can be used to identify the business reasons for building more closeness in a relationship (these are called ‘drivers’ of the partnership).

In a day-and-a-half partnership meeting, a cross-functional management team from each company works separately with a facilitator to identify their firm’s drivers of the partnership. After both sides have agreed on the drivers, the next step is to identify the appropriate type of partnership by considering the strength of the drivers and how the two organizations mesh. The output of the day-and-a-half meeting is a strategy and an action plan for managing the relationship and achieving each organization’s drivers.

We have conducted more than 100 partnership meetings with major corporations around the world. One example is the Wendy’s and Tyson relationship, which was the basis for a 2004 article in Harvard Business Review. You can also read about the Partnership Model in Chapter 4 of the Supply Chain Management book.

If you would like more information about our partnership facilitation services please contact us.

I have employed many of the fundamental building blocks of supply chain management spelled out in this book to transform a supply chain into a competitive weapon. If you want to deliver extraordinary business results in a challenging economic environment, study and apply the principles of this book.
Mark F. LeposkyExecutive Vice President, & Chief Supply Chain Officer, Topgolf Callaway Brands Corp.
Once again Douglas Lambert and his colleagues have given us fresh insights into how supply chains should be structured and managed to ensure enduring competitive advantage. Based on original research across many sectors the authors provide practical guidance on how to achieve excellence in the supply chain through building better and stronger relationships.
Martin ChristopherEmeritus Professor of Marketing and Logistics, Cranfield University School of Management, UK.
This book develops a robust model of supply chain management processes and properly defines them so that they can be managed. This enhanced understanding enables the enterprise to realize that supply chain management is too important to be just a function. It is everybody’s job
Tom Blackstock Vice President, Supply Chain Operations (Retired), Coca-Cola North America
This book provides an entry into the opportunities afforded from a more sophisticated approach to supply chain management, covering the theory through to practical application, against the backdrop of 21st century supply chains and the issues they face.
Stuart LendrumDirector of Product, Process and Sustainability, Iceland Foods
In this book, we discovered a framework to help us manage business relationships and make cross-functional integration a reality. We strongly believe that managing relationships both with customers and suppliers represents an opportunity to achieve a competitive advantage in a market where products tend to become commodities.
Jorge Vazquez AlessiaDirector of Business Development, Penetron International Argentina

Cross-functional Assessments of Supply Chain Management Processes

We have developed assessment tools that can be used to benchmark an organization’s practices with best practices and prioritize the identified improvement opportunities. Prior to using the assessment tool, we conduct a conference call with your team to familiarize them with the process being assessed and the assessment tool. Then, we attend and facilitate the consensus-building session. Based on the discussion of the consensus-building meeting, we help you develop a plan-for-action. The consensus-building meeting and the session for developing the action plan take a full day. Finally, we provide you with a summary report which incorporates experience with other companies, identifies the biggest improvement opportunities, and offers guidance for implementation. 

If you would like more information about our cross-functional assessment of the Supply Chain Management Processes, please contact us.

Process Implementation

We provide consulting services. We can tailor our involvement according to your needs. To discuss this further, contact us.

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