End the casual relationships with your suppliers

During the course of the past twelve months I have read numerous newsletters, articles and blog entries that cover the topic of perfect partnerships. For those of us who do not have the time and money to buy every book that covers this topic and read it, I would like to share with you three things you need to measure to distinguish partners from suppliers.

Upon closer inspection you will notice that large corporations have partnerships, not suppliers as the case would be with most SME’s.
The reason for having partnerships instead of suppliers is simple. Suppliers end up being a pain in the behind.

So, how do you distinguish a suppliers from partnership?

1. Partnerships exceed expectations, and they ultimately live up to the promises they make. Do they live up to the promises they made?


2. Partnerships shows better return on investment. Are you getting your penny’s worth?


3. Partnerships constitute organisational capability. Are you getting the support you deserve from head office?

Casual relationship suppliers tend to:

1. Waste time with lots of meetings.


2. Waste time because of substantial supervision requirements.


3. Waste time on solving internal issues with processes, procedures and policy.


4. Waste time and effort as casual relationships tend to be short-term.


5. Waste time with low-value transactions.


6. Waste time to low referral rates and high termination probability that disrupts your company.

If you want to waste time you should continue your casual relationships with your suppliers.
If you want to develop into a large business you should work at establishing partnerships:

1. Less meetings and more work.


2. Less issues and supervision.


3. Long-term relationship stability. Something that is worth time investment.


4. Big value, high incentive contracts.


5. Automatic growth.


6. No need to terminate the partnership, resulting in low risk.

If you are aiming at becoming big you won’t tolerate casual suppliers. It is either up or out. Put the same effort into selecting your suppliers as you would a life-partner.
In partnerships all parties look out for each other. In casual relationships you will feel like a Friday night one-night-stand.