Behind many breakthrough innovations are strategic relationships between two or more companies. Iconic examples such as Corning’s collaboration with Apple on impact-resistant glass or Alcoa’s work with Ford on aluminum truck bodies show the impact of strong and strategic B2B relationships.
And in times of business uncertainty, strong supplier and customer relationships can be a source of stability.
And yet, companies often erect formidable barriers to more strategic collaborations. In the Industrials and B2B spaces, in particular, relationships can often be adversarial, characterized by intermediation, contentious price-centered negotiations, and a win-lose mindset.
Shifting these relationships from transactional to strategic can unlock substantial value for both suppliers and customers. The benefits include a higher share of wallet, longer-term sourcing commitments, exclusive collaborations where appropriate, and tradeoffs in product margin to gain longer-term benefits like net cost savings.
In this on-demand webcast, Innosight’s Rob Bell, Ned Calder, and Freddy Solis explain the power of a more strategic approach to B2B relationships. They explore:
- Why industrial and B2B relationships evolve to a transactional status over time
- How four principles of a “strategic relationship management” approach can shift your most critical relationships from transactional to strategic
- How applying the principles to your space can enable new modes of collaboration with industry players