You may wonder why a business would ask itself that question.
The answer is simple. Any business is bound to benefit from maintaining good relations with its suppliers. Here are three good reasons why you should strive for a beneficial relationship with your suppliers.
1. Know your suppliers are there when you need them.
Being able to count on the support of a supplier can greatly influence a project’s chances of success or failure. To make this possible, maintaining open, honest communications with your suppliers, listening to their concerns, and involving them in your process will go a long way to gaining their trust and, as a result, securing their support – even at critical times.
2. Innovate thanks to your suppliers.
Treating your supplier like a partner will spark innovation and create value. Realize that a strategic supplier who feels respected, with whom you discuss matters regularly and transparently, and with whom you foster a relationship in which everybody wins, is a true source of innovation for your business.
3. Impact on your financial results.
A successful relationship with your supplier will minimize risk management, simplify the transactional process, and boost your market competitiveness. At the end of the day, this way of working will inevitably have a positive impact on your profit margin.
How to make sure your suppliers like doing business with you
Treat them with respect, with transparency, in a win-win context and you are putting all the odds on your side.
The era of demanding cost reductions from a supplier under threat of taking your business away is over. Instead, a buyer 4.0 will ask suppliers how to make both parties competitive in their respective market. Put the question to them. You will likely be pleasantly surprised by their response.
Interested in finding out whether your suppliers are happy with your approach? J2 has designed a survey tool for this purpose: Compas. This survey will sound out your suppliers and show you how they perceive your customer-supplier relationship. What’s more, Compas will also reveal your internal customers’ perceptions.
Benefits of Compas:
- You get a descriptive, information-rich perception analysis.
- You learn the honest truth about your strengths and weaknesses.
- You can act on the most valuable opportunities to improve your customer-supplier relationships.
- You can adjust your supplier strategy on the basis of accurate information.