Comments on: The soft side of the supplier-customer relationship http://blog.kinaxis.com/2009/10/the-soft-side-of-the-supplier-customer-relationship/ Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:48:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Ron Hatfield http://blog.kinaxis.com/2009/10/the-soft-side-of-the-supplier-customer-relationship/comment-page-1/#comment-4318 Ron Hatfield Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:20:16 +0000 http://blog.kinaxis.com/?p=2327#comment-4318 While I agree in principle with the paper, I take exception to the title. Building data based relationships is easier than building trust based relationships. Building relationships between suppliers and retailers is very difficult as many of their goals are at cross purposes. My experience has been that after the hard work of building the relationship is done the work of agreeing to share data or information becomes easier. Maintaining these relationship can be difficult as the pressures on both sides willl be tugged to focus on their goals and objectives and will require a lot of energy and commitment to keep the relationships moving forward. I am amazed at how few meaningful (from a business perspective) relationships are in place between suppliers and retailers who have such great dependance on each other. There are certainly tools in place to facilitate building these relationships. While I agree in principle with the paper, I take exception to the title. Building data based
relationships is easier than building trust based relationships. Building relationships between
suppliers and retailers is very difficult as many of their goals are at cross purposes. My
experience has been that after the hard work of building the relationship is done the work of
agreeing to share data or information becomes easier. Maintaining these relationship can be
difficult as the pressures on both sides willl be tugged to focus on their goals and objectives
and will require a lot of energy and commitment to keep the relationships moving forward.

I am amazed at how few meaningful (from a business perspective) relationships are in place
between suppliers and retailers who have such great dependance on each other. There are
certainly tools in place to facilitate building these relationships.

]]> By: Ron Freiberg http://blog.kinaxis.com/2009/10/the-soft-side-of-the-supplier-customer-relationship/comment-page-1/#comment-4308 Ron Freiberg Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:43:17 +0000 http://blog.kinaxis.com/?p=2327#comment-4308 I would agree, the changes in what one would call the hard core processes of supply, i.e. the changes from forecast based scheduling to demand based scheduling, the need to mitigate supply disruptions, advent of EDI, outsourcing and the need to manage consistency of quality and costing have all levels have led to the greater need for sharing of information on both sides of the fence. Nearly every supply agreement we write today has verbaige regarding how we will all manage and share information about all levels in the supply chain from third or fourth teir supplier, up through our manufacturing process and out to the end customer and warranty service after the sale. If we aren't bringing Sales, Engineering, Quality and Manufacturing into the supply decision and attempting to manage activities deep into the supply chain of events we are seriously remiss. I would agree, the changes in what one would call the hard core processes of supply, i.e. the changes from forecast based scheduling to demand based scheduling, the need to mitigate supply disruptions, advent of EDI, outsourcing and the need to manage consistency of quality and costing have all levels have led to the greater need for sharing of information on both sides of the fence. Nearly every supply agreement we write today has verbaige regarding how we will all manage and share information about all levels in the supply chain from third or fourth teir supplier, up through our manufacturing process and out to the end customer and warranty service after the sale. If we aren’t bringing Sales, Engineering, Quality and Manufacturing into the supply decision and attempting to manage activities deep into the supply chain of events we are seriously remiss.

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