Take Advantage Of Customer/Vendor Collaborations

In the marketing profession, we often get an opportunity to see both ends of a business relationship in quick succession. Our negotiations with suppliers and vendors are often immediately turned into business opportunities presented to clients or new business prospects.

This is salesmanship, customer management and business process in its most linear form. It’s not that linear is bad, it’s just not very flexible or creative. Linear thinking in business today is time-tested and trusted. It’s safe and conventional.

The problem is, we live in an unconventional world and those businesses that aren’t creative run the risk of falling fast and hard.

So, how do you foster creativity in a business environment that may not be particularly creative? The answer lies in collaborative techniques designed to bring more people into the solution. With more people come more points of view, more ideas and eventually more value.

Collaboration can be a destructive thing, though. It often needs to break down conventional barriers to creativity. And, quite typically, the first thing to go are the “silos of responsibility” employers and managers often build around themselves.

Explained on mid-level manager in the financial services profession: “We are desperately trying to move away from silo’ed efforts,” in their quest for greater collaboration. The result of such an effort can be liberating – often resulting in a new or unique perspective on conventional business problems.

When the collaborative effort extends beyond the organization and involves clients and vendors, the impact can be felt beyond the immediate return on investment. Increased loyalty between parties – a direct result of sharing the process of discovery that characterizes collaboration – is known as the Hawthorne Effect.

Benefits can be measured on the balance sheet, as well. Improved financial stability resulting from stronger ties with customers and vendors give managers a solid footing for planning and growth. Economies of scale can result from purchases made against long-term order quantities. Sharing resources between parties can help lower production costs for both.

There are always new examples of customer collaborations announced in the media. If you have a particular case study or example you would like to share, I invite you to contact me and we’ll develop a case study to share on this blog.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Branding, Collaboration, Partnership, Hawthorne Effect, Customer Relationships, Vendor Relations, Leadership, Culture

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