Landing and strategizing with suppliers
Jean Le Bel Ngopnang, MBA
Managing Director - Senior Expert at Blue Ocean Group
Suppliers are on the critical path to your success: you need to integrate them into all aspects of your thinking and operation
Only recently have people begun to recognize that working with suppliers is just as important as listening to customers
Barry Nalebuff
American businessman, business theorist, and writer
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A key element of your competitive system, suppliers must be integrated into your strategic thinking.
In the 5 forces that determine you in the market, Porter identifies one which is "the bargaining power of suppliers".
Usually, in strategic workshops, we think about only one of the 5 forces, the competition and the final product that will be put in front of the customer: little is said about suppliers, which are a key element of the way you will conquer new positions or at least maintain actual.
Supplier is the one who upstream provides the raw material to which you add value through your internal know-how and processes to satisfy your customers’ needs. The relationship with this critical link must be well analyzed and scrutinized to make it a critical competitive element.
Suppliers can be defined in two main categories:
? The STRATEGIC SUPPLIER : the one who provides you with the critical raw material without which you will not produce in quantity and especially in quality (time and use) the expected value and that will differentiate you
? The SUPPORT PROVIDER who provides you with all the needs and supports that keep the business running (accessories, office automation, general services)
?? The strategic supplier
The Strategic supplier must be monitored, must be integrated into any transformation plan, must be analyzed in order to ensure that production needs in quality and quantity are well supplied and supplied on time.
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Relationships with strategic suppliers must be co-creation relationships.
It is important and critical that the strategic supplier is aware that he is contributing to the company's performance and competitiveness.
?? The Support Provider
The support provider is just as critical, because the small elements of non-performance that add up generating losses in competitiveness come from the quality of their supply: quality, quantity and time not respected.
?? SUPPLIER LANDING
When landing, suppliers must be followed-up closely so that the end of the year is not caught off guard by a failure: the raw material is supplied in quantity and quantity at this time when many suppliers and national or international logistics are under tension with the end of the year.
It is important to better evaluate suppliers’ landing, to have an evaluation sheet of their performance over time in the year.
Supplier evaluation tool is key.
????YOUR STRATEGY
In strategy, the place of suppliers being known, the needs evaluated, it is necessary to integrate them early enough into the refinement system of your strategy. A seminar with these suppliers is not to be neglected. You need to talk with them about:
?? THE SUPPLIER'S PLACE
The place of the supplier is critical and its consideration in the various strategic or operational plans is an element of performance and competitiveness. Having several suppliers in order to prevent the failures of one of them is just a tactical palliative plan that cannot replace real strategic thinking.
Without putting them at the center (this place is kept for the customer or the staff), do not ignore the suppliers in your reflections: a late or poor-quality supply leads to serious operational consequences!
Never forget that you're also someone's supplier!
?? ?? A landing or take-off with suppliers is one of the performance guarantees!