Blue Canyon Partners is pleased to share our research findings and insights regarding business-to-business growth strategy with our clients and friends. Most of them are available in .pdf format and can be emailed to you quickly. To browse our publications, click the category you are interested in, select the publications that you are interested in receiving, and complete the form at the bottom of the page to receive your publications. Be sure to include your email address.
Synopsis: This paper has describes five growth lessons that business organizations and their leadership can use to meet the mandate of profitable growth. These lessons reflect the reality of business markets, building upon the defining characteristic of complex customer chains and the imperative that a supplier must deliver value to its customers. An approach to segmentation based upon customer buying behavior is outlined. This segmentation structure identifies distinct business environments within which distinct strategies are appropriate. Firms that understand these segments and the strategies that work within them can target opportunities that fit their own capabilities more effectively and focus upon the value-creation levers that are connected to success in these markets. This structure also defines a new perspective on competition, suggesting the directions from which competitive challenges are most threatening and the responses that can be put into place to ward off such challenges. Finally, the importance of strong relationship-oriented competencies to growth strategy are outlined and linked to the environments in which strategy is likely to be implemented in business markets.
B. Best-in-Class Behaviors in Business-to-Business Relationships
Synopsis: Competency in managing strategic account relationships yields customers who are satisfied and see value, and, in turn, such customers reward their high-competency suppliers with their business. The evidence from our research is that there is a strong and actionable relationship between particular competencies important to business-to-business customers and the growth that is realized from these accounts – one part of the Relationship Advantage that is available to business-to-business suppliers. Companies that invest some of the payoffs from growth in actions to build even stronger competencies, by nurturing their relationship management competencies and enhancing their Relationship Advantage, can start a virtuous cycle through which the growth potential of their business-to-business relationships is realized year after year. In addition, these companies can incorporate these capabilities into their response to competition that attempts to win business strictly on the basis of price.
C. Finding New Pathways to Profitable Growth
Synopsis: Identification of the most promising new markets, customer segments, and product and service offerings is critical to sustained profitable growth. The Opportunity-Fit Methodology described in this paper provides a convenient way for business-to-business corporations to compare and select from among the numerous and widely-diverse growth options that are candidates for investment funding. This methodology allows for comparisons among options that involve new geographic markets, new products and services, and new customer segments, in various combinations. The paper also describes how careful attention paid to the customer chains involved in the business-to-business markets under consideration can help to ensure that the maximum benefits are realized from the application of this methodology.
D. A Blueprint for Success with Suppliers
Synopsis: Leading firms recognize that supplier contributions span many categories, not being limited to contributions associated with lower prices and meeting specifications. In fact, the most valued supplier contributions, those related in the context of supplier success stories, typically focus on contributions that helped their customer gain market share, achieve premium prices, and solve a perplexing technical challenge. To realize such high-value supplier contributions, optimal supply management frameworks can be built upon the framework of our research as to the characteristics of best-in-class customers, those that attract the best suppliers and motivate their best contributions. Not all suppliers, of course, have the potential to make such diverse contributions, and an important starting point for supply chain management strategy involves understanding the range of contributions that each supplier could potentially make. An explicit assessment tool provides a basis for categorizing prospective supplier contributions and identifying those organizations that should be targeted for strategic relationships.
E. `Supplier Driven` and `Channel Driven` Business Models
Synopsis: For many business-to-business suppliers, their customer chains involve channel organizations and one or more stages of end customers, and such suppliers must address the business needs of their channel partners and also the business needs of its end customers. We find that there are two distinct clusters of business-to-business customer chains that involve both channel organizations and end customers. Some such customer chains involve a “Suppler Driven�? environment, in which the supplier has a direct and often intense relationship with the end customers one or more stages further down the chain. Other customer chains involve a `Channel Driven` environment in which the channel organization has most or all of the direct relationship with the end customer. In the context of overall strategy, the effectiveness of various tools for channel management can be linked to the `Supplier Driven` and `Channel Driven` environment, allowing suppliers to design programs with greater likelihood of success.
F. China Economics: Unraveling the Mystery of China's Low Cost
Synopsis:This paper offers insights into the economics of manufacturing in China. While the game is rigged to some extent by the way business is done and the involvement of government, the real answer to why Chinese companies seem to have a much lower cost base lies in a low-labor-cost mentality that pervades their operations, resulting in a low-cost environment that Chinese companies create for themselves. Business methods that use labor to creatively save on other costs, the management of extremely low-cost supplier networks, and a customer satisfaction approach that substitutes extraordinary customer service for product maturity and quality are among the factors that create a cost advantage. The paper presents evaluations and scorecards to assist in evaluating whether a given company can achieve these “China cost” efficiencies. We then discuss the business environment, presenting our methodology for evaluating whether “pushing the envelope” on cost is a business mandate versus a matter of choice versus a matter of little importance. Finally, the paper discusses the potential for outsourcing to substitute for internal means of achieving cost efficiencies.
G. Innovation: Fuel for Breakout Growth
Synopsis: Three types of innovation are described that can help suppliers succeed with their most important customers. Each of these types of innovations is matched to the customer environments in which it is likely to be successful. The factors that are prerequisite to customer acceptance of supplier innovations are discussed, along with a number of supplier success stories. Research findings as to how best-in-class companies establish their position as innovators in the eyes of their customers are presented, along with action recommendations that can be used to start along the path on which innovation becomes fuel for breakout growth.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
H. Market-Driven Product Development Strategy
Synopsis: Product development can make a significant contribution to business growth if such initiatives are correctly focused on the needs of various market segments that create economic value and competitive advantages. The analytic framework described in this paper for developing market-driven product development strategies yields tremendous payoffs by enabling achievement of superior alignment between markets and product development management. The framework developed in this paper shows how each of the dimensions of major product development strategy can be addressed in accordance with the factors that are critical to success in the corresponding business environment. Several case studies are provided showing the linkage between characteristics of the market environment and decisions on product development priorities.
I. Get-to-Market Plans: From Strategy to Successful Implementation
Synopsis: This research paper provides insights as to how businesses management the implementation process to ensure that goals are attained. A framework for translating strategy into Get-to-Market implementation Plans is developed, incorporating insights from senior executives from a spectrum of leading business-to-business industries. Specific ideas are suggested that can contribute to successful implementation, spanning such themes as developing an action plan, allocating resources, assigning responsibility and authority, communicating the plan to gain buy-in, and monitoring and managing the implementation process. Several case studies of implementation processes are analyzed, and a top ten list of best practice insights is presented to help firms ensure that the translation from strategy to implementation yields rewards for their shareholders.
J. Customer-Written Plans for Brands and Pricing
Synopsis: Brand and pricing decisions can make a substantial contribution to profitable growth. Defining an effective brand architecture and solid pricing plans are complicated by the nature of the complex business-to-business environment. Blue Canyon`s framework helps suppliers understand how to weave brand positioning and pricing strategy into a consistent mix of decisions about product features, service offerings, business systems, channel partner relationships, and technology planning. When made from these foundations, brand and pricing decisions can help to perpetuate a virtuous cycle that creates value for shareholders and customers alike.
A. Best-in-Class Behaviors in Business-to-Business Relationships
Synopsis: Competency in managing strategic account relationships yields customers who are satisfied and see value, and, in turn, such customers reward their high-competency suppliers with their business. The evidence from our research is that there is a strong and actionable relationship between particular competencies important to business-to-business customers and the growth that is realized from these accounts – one part of the Relationship Advantage that is available to business-to-business suppliers. Companies that invest some of the payoffs from growth in actions to build even stronger competencies, by nurturing their relationship management competencies and enhancing their Relationship Advantage, can start a virtuous cycle through which the growth potential of their business-to-business relationships is realized year after year. In addition, these companies can incorporate these capabilities into their response to competition that attempts to win business strictly on the basis of price.
B. A Blueprint for Success with Major Customers
Synopsis: Major customers are an important reality in business markets. Simply stated, if revenue growth is the challenge, major customers are the answer. To realize this growth opportunity, a supplier`s major customer strategy must be built upon an understanding of each customer chain segment relevant to the major customer. In this paper, Blue Canyon outlines its systematic approach to major customer strategy, offering the supplier an ability to enhance its competitive advantage by uncovering linkages across its product lines and across the major customer`s markets. Key competencies relevant to growing major customer relationships are also linked to the overall strategy for managing major customer relationships.
C. Three C`s of Global Account Management: Customers, Customization, and Competitive Advantage
Synopsis: Suppliers can simultaneously respond to their shareholders` growth expectations and their major customers` expectations for global relationships by following three steps leading to successful globalization. First, customers -- not countries -- must define the supplier`s globalization strategy. Second, if the supplier is to create a competitive advantage, the major customer must see an emphasis on customization that responds to customer chain distinctions across markets. Third, processes and business systems integration can enable the supplier to build a basis for competitive success with its major customers.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
D. Offices in Chicago and Chengdu
Synopsis: Achieving success in China will often require major customer relationships, probably in about the same proportion of instances as exist in other markets and countries. Companies that are already good at this should have a serious head start, as most of the competencies that made them good elsewhere will serve them in good stead in China. At the same time, China is not the same as everywhere else, and adjustments must be made to the core competencies involving relationship, implementation, and innovation. In this paper, we focus on three key adjustments: addressing the intensely personal dimension of major customer relationships, dialing up to the shorter cycle times that will be expected by the Chinese relationship partner, and figuring out how to have a strategic relationship in a world of a complex, multi-party square dance among businesses in China.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
E. Strategic Accounts as Engines of Growth
Synopsis: The experiences of best-in-class strategic account organizations confirm that significant benefits can be realized from implementing effective strategic account relationship management programs. These benefits are many, but include improved performance along dimensions such as growth, profitability, and stability. To realize these benefits, it is critical that actions be taken to create a strategic relationship, one in which the supplier views its customers as a strategic account and the customer views the supplier as a strategic supplier. Other findings relate to the importance of achieving the status of a `solutions provider` to the strategic account and to the internal foundations that enable strategic relationships to succeed.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
F. Growth Is A Project
Synopsis: Research with strategic account relationships has identified four Tiers of such relationships, labeled Supplier, Preferred Supplier, Extended Enterprise Member, and Partner. Consistently, the fastest growth rates and the most stable relationships are associated with the higher Tier strategic accounts. Explicit growth projects can be defined that link strategy to relationship management and enable a supplier to drive growth by `doing the right things...right`. Three case studies illustrate the typical challenges that suppliers face at the various Tiers of strategic account relationships and the growth projects that moved these relationships forward.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
G. eSAM: Creating the `e` Footprint for Strategic Accounts
Synopsis: The rush towards `e` has important implications for those responsible for strategic accounts. The first step towards `eSAM` is to recognize the inevitability of each strategic account`s incorporation of `e` into their business strategy. Business-to-business suppliers and their strategic account managers must recognize the importance of `e` strategies as a tool for building and enhancing relationships. The focus of `e` initiatives and the strength of `e` competencies must be understood for the supplier`s own organization and for the strategic account as well.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
H. Solving the Business-to-Business Services Paradox
Synopsis: Success in making services an effective component of overall strategy, one that contributes to growth and profits, requires that the supplier understand the complex customer chains that exist within their markets. Service strategies must be developed in a way that is consistent with the reality of four distinct business environments within which business-to-business suppliers must operate. The supplier must understand the environment in which each major customer or cluster of customers is located, and tailor their services strategy accordingly. Within this overall approach, the supplier should look carefully for the potential for breakout success through services strategies that might later lead to supplier success stories and strengthen the image of the supplier as an innovator.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
I. Whatever Happened to Growth?
Synopsis: Best-in-class companies can provide important lessons about how they ensure that growth is something that results from planning and action, rather than being something that `just happens`. Often, such growth lessons involve major customer relationship management strategies designed to create `win-win-win` outcomes for a supplier, their direct customers and sales channel partners, and their end customers. While each business environment invites different approaches to growth planning, many success stories involve initiatives that `Raise the Bar`, `Create Winning Teams`, and `Change the Game` Success in transforming strategic account relationships into growth engines typically involve key relationship management competencies can be developed and established as a source of competitive strength.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
Synopsis: Identification of the most promising new markets, customer segments, and product and service offerings is critical to sustained profitable growth. The Opportunity-Fit Methodology described in this paper provides a convenient way for business-to-business corporations to compare and select from among the numerous and widely-diverse growth options that are candidates for investment funding. This methodology allows for comparisons among options that involve new geographic markets, new products and services, and new customer segments, in various combinations. The paper also describes how careful attention paid to the customer chains involved in the business-to-business markets under consideration can help to ensure that the maximum benefits are realized from the application of this methodology.
B. Market-Driven Product Development Strategy
Synopsis: Product development can make a significant contribution to business growth if such initiatives are correctly focused on the needs of various market segments that create economic value and competitive advantages. The analytic framework described in this paper for developing market-driven product development strategies yields tremendous payoffs by enabling achievement of superior alignment between markets and product development management. The framework developed in this paper shows how each of the dimensions of major product development strategy can be addressed in accordance with the factors that are critical to success in the corresponding business environment. Several case studies are provided showing the linkage between characteristics of the market environment and decisions on product development priorities.
C. Out of Crisis Comes Opportunity
Synopsis: This paper offers three ideas as to how firms can translate the crisis of realizing that their major customers are focused on the China market into opportunity. These ideas involve focusing on the reasons why customers are entering the China market, understanding the complexity of relationships with Chinese organizations, and translating value contributions from existing relationships into the China market. We believe that attention to these three ideas can enable firms to more successfully manage the complexity of the China market and translate activity in this market into profitable growth. Firms that have been successful with their major customers get a head start against their competitors in China, and should be able to translate this head start into a win at the finish line.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
D. Rules of Three
Synopsis: Success in managing important Chinese customer relationships requires a realization that the organizational structure relevant to your firm’s success is typically more complex than is the case in the west. With so many customers representing the product of joint venture (and other) structures, the challenge of relationship management takes on additional dimensions. This paper has defined a set of rules that can facilitate success with Chinese customer relationships. The first rule focuses on the many faces that exist to a Chinese customer relationship. The second rule focuses on the importance of government third parties. The third rule focuses on the multiple time frames that must be managed in the context of a Chinese customer relationship. For each of these three rules, several lessons that have emerged from experiences in working with firms that have been successful in China have been provided.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
E. Vehicle OEM Affiliations: How to Market and Sell in China
Synopsis: The Chinese automotive market is by virtually all estimates the most dynamic and exciting one in the world, with significant growth taking place and the content on vehicles rapidly growing in quality and dimensionality. As a result, the opportunities for suppliers are tremendously attractive, but success requires navigating the complexities of this market and its numerous ventures among global and Chinese OEMs. This presentation, given to the Original Equipment Suppliers Association in October 2006 in Shanghai, addresses the current OEM customer market in China, and defines the approaches that are most likely to yield success for suppliers targeting this market. Included is a competitive analysis of the Chinese automobile market, a discussion on the importance of relationships when doing business in China, and an assessment of the future opportunities for suppliers in this market, and the opportunities that exist for working directly with Chinese OEMs.
F. Translating Solutions into Rewards for Customers and Shareholders
Synopsis: The route to `systems and solutions` is one that is based on value creation, not scale, breadth, or relationships economies. Our research concludes that firms that have successfully developed such relationships were able to understand a customer`s problem, help solve it, and surmounted the numerous obstacles that occur when an innovation involves a change in the roles and responsibilities between a supplier and a customer. Achieving success along this path requires thoughtful decisions regarding strategy, partners, contributions, and communications. Along each of these dimensions, guidelines for success have been developed to ensure that systems and solutions intiatives yield contributions to customers and shareholders alike.
G. The Unwritten Rules of China
Synopsis: While identifying the potential of the China market is not difficult, realizing this potential is complicated by a set of `Unwritten Rules` that firms must understand and navigate. This paper describes ten of China`s `Unwritten Rules` and their implications for companies operating in that country. Several case studies link these rules to the actions that a firm can take in order to increase its probability of success. An assessment tools is provided that can be used to determine the strength of a firm`s position vis-a-vis China`s `Unwritten Rules` and to identify the areas in which actions are most necessary. With careful evaluation, plans, and actions, it is possible to make the `Unwritten Rules` an advantage for your firm.
H. A Changing Industry: What It Means for Suppliers
Synopsis: This presentation examines the forces that will shape the heavy-duty truck business environment in the years following the present surge in demand. Several factors are examined that are likely to yield intensified price pressures beginning in 2007: excess capacity, the `New OEM Business Model,` recent trends towards consolidation, and the rapid pace of technological improvements taking place in the industry. These and other factors are examined using a model that defines the potential for pricing pressures and identifies opportunities through which suppliers can create and capture value. The presentation also examines the longer-term forces impacting on the industry, including underlying logistics trends and the potentially rapid growth in emerging markets like China.
Synopsis: Operations decisions – along such dimensions as make vs. buy, warehousing and logistics, manufacturing strategy, sourcing, business systems, and customer support – are far too often divorced from messages from customers and channel partners. This is particularly so when firms are faced with pressures on pricing from competitors and customers. This paper outlines an approach to bringing the voice of the customer effectively into decisions on operations and assets, thereby ensuring that such decisions are consistent with the factors that will determine the firm’s success in making sales and satisfying customers. Case studies are provided showing how operations decisions can balance internal and market considerations and result in rewards for shareholders.
B. A Blueprint for Success with Suppliers
Synopsis: Leading firms recognize that supplier contributions span many categories, not being limited to contributions associated with lower prices and meeting specifications. In fact, the most valued supplier contributions, those related in the context of supplier success stories, typically focus on contributions that helped their customer gain market share, achieve premium prices, and solve a perplexing technical challenge. To realize such high-value supplier contributions, optimal supply management frameworks can be built upon the framework of our research as to the characteristics of best-in-class customers, those that attract the best suppliers and motivate their best contributions. Not all suppliers, of course, have the potential to make such diverse contributions, and an important starting point for supply chain management strategy involves understanding the range of contributions that each supplier could potentially make. An explicit assessment tool provides a basis for categorizing prospective supplier contributions and identifying those organizations that should be targeted for strategic relationships.
C. China Economics: Unraveling the Mystery of China's Low Cost
Synopsis:This paper offers insights into the economics of manufacturing in China. While the game is rigged to some extent by the way business is done and the involvement of government, the real answer to why Chinese companies seem to have a much lower cost base lies in a low-labor-cost mentality that pervades their operations, resulting in a low-cost environment that Chinese companies create for themselves. Business methods that use labor to creatively save on other costs, the management of extremely low-cost supplier networks, and a customer satisfaction approach that substitutes extraordinary customer service for product maturity and quality are among the factors that create a cost advantage. The paper presents evaluations and scorecards to assist in evaluating whether a given company can achieve these “China cost” efficiencies. We then discuss the business environment, presenting our methodology for evaluating whether “pushing the envelope” on cost is a business mandate versus a matter of choice versus a matter of little importance. Finally, the paper discusses the potential for outsourcing to substitute for internal means of achieving cost efficiencies.
D. Implementation Competencies: Creating Long-Term Growth Foundations
Synopsis: Implementation competencies have assumed greater and greater importance as a result of just-in-time approaches to manufacturing and logistics, cycle-time reduction initiatives in product development, high expectations with respect to customer service, globalization, and other factors. Business-to-business suppliers must therefore take on the challenge of mobilizing an organization-wide approach to successful implementation of programs in support of their customers, spotlighting in particular the linkages that are critical to major customer relationships. This article identifies the implementation competencies most closely correlated to growth, and provides examples of ways in which firms have implemented best-in-class programs to strengthen and showcase their implementation competencies. Success with such programs is shown to be an important prerequisite to customer receptivity to innovations, particularly those that involve changes in the roles and boundaries of the supplier and the customer.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
E. Business-to-Business `e` Strategy
Synopsis: Beyond contributions to procurement and supply chain management, business-to-business `e` strategy can contribute to a supplier`s growth in four distinct ways: e-information services, e-bid services, e-business systems, and e-channel `Which `e` services?` and `Which customers?` are natural questions within the business-to-business environment that can be answered by linking customer chain segments to these four elements of `e` strategy. Many `e` initiatives have involved a fundamental transformation of the roles and boundaries between them -- offering the supplier new avenues for adding value. Suppliers able to identify such initiatives can strengthen long-term customer relationships and become a more integrated part of their customer`s `extended enterprise.`
F. Get-to-Market Plans: From Strategy to Successful Implementation
Synopsis: This research paper provides insights as to how businesses management the implementation process to ensure that goals are attained. A framework for translating strategy into Get-to-Market implementation Plans is developed, incorporating insights from senior executives from a spectrum of leading business-to-business industries. Specific ideas are suggested that can contribute to successful implementation, spanning such themes as developing an action plan, allocating resources, assigning responsibility and authority, communicating the plan to gain buy-in, and monitoring and managing the implementation process. Several case studies of implementation processes are analyzed, and a top ten list of best practice insights is presented to help firms ensure that the translation from strategy to implementation yields rewards for their shareholders.
Synopsis: Business-to-business suppliers frequently become trapped within a vicious cycle of price competition that erodes margins and lessens their ability to make the investments that differentiate their offerings and customer relationships. This article describes lessons that have been successfully applied to avoid this vicious cycle. These lessons emphasize a proactive approach to addressing the customer`s pricing issues and action plans that differentiate the relationship, not just the firm`s products and services. Data relating to the importance of pricing in customer decisions is presented, suggesting that this challenge must be accepted as an everyday part of customer relationship management.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
B. China Economics: Unraveling the Mystery of China's Low Cost
Synopsis: For many business-to-business suppliers, their customer chains involve channel organizations and one or more stages of end customers, and such suppliers must address the business needs of their channel partners and also the business needs of its end customers. We find that there are two distinct clusters of business-to-business customer chains that involve both channel organizations and end customers. Some such customer chains involve a “Suppler Driven�? environment, in which the supplier has a direct and often intense relationship with the end customers one or more stages further down the chain. Other customer chains involve a `Channel Driven` environment in which the channel organization has most or all of the direct relationship with the end customer. In the context of overall strategy, the effectiveness of various tools for channel management can be linked to the `Supplier Driven` and `Channel Driven` environment, allowing suppliers to design programs with greater likelihood of success.
C. Business-to-Business Economics
Synopsis: Business-to-business suppliers face a complex market and economic environment. Their direct customers and end customers bring a wide spectrum of criteria into their purchase decision processes, reflecting distinctions in business models, firm economics, market characteristics, and other factors. In this paper, we develop explicit economic models which can help suppliers understand their own potential for margin improvement and the ways in which they can help to improve their direct customer’s profitability. These models can help the business-to-business supplier identify approaches to pricing and segmentation that can simultaneously improve profitability for both themselves and their direct customers.
D. Using Services Strategies to Avoid Price Pressures
Synopsis: In today`s business environment, pricing pressures are the norm for business-to-business suppliers, whose customers have sharp pencils and effective tactics with which to gain price concessions. Often, services strategies can be an important part of the strategy to combat such pressures, as long as the supplier uses such services as a tool with which to create value for its customer. We have identified the three ways in which a supplier can contribute to their customer`s business success: helping the customer grow market share, helping the customer achieve a premium price, and helping the customer to take costs out of their system. Our experiences suggest that the `service rich` opportunities to deliver such contributions are often located two or more stages down the customer chain. And, with many success stories involving the integration of products and services, it is important to recognize that the key ingredient in many success stories was the fact that the integration achieved a solution to a key problem facing the customer. Suppliers must therefore think of themselves as `sources of solutions` rather than just as `systems integrators.`
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
E. Innovation: Fuel for Breakout Growth
Synopsis: Three types of innovation are described that can help suppliers succeed with their most important customers. Each of these types of innovations is matched to the customer environments in which it is likely to be successful. The factors that are prerequisite to customer acceptance of supplier innovations are discussed, along with a number of supplier success stories. Research findings as to how best-in-class companies establish their position as innovators in the eyes of their customers are presented, along with action recommendations that can be used to start along the path on which innovation becomes fuel for breakout growth.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
F. Win the Day: Managing Price Pressures in the Automotive Industry
Synopsis: The factors that determine pricing pressures are examined, focusing on the experiences of suppliers to the U.S. automotive industry. Price management programs employed by original equipment manufacturers are examined, along with the approaches that suppliers have used to respond to them. Ten factors that determine the intensity of pricing pressures are identified, along with tools that can be used to assess the likely level of price pressures in a particular supplier-customer relationship. Action plan recommendations for managing the pricing environment are defined, including both short-term tactics and longer-term strategic initiatives, based upon the research findings and the experiences of numerous individuals interviewed as part of this research initiative.
G. Customer-Written Plans for Brands and Pricing
Synopsis: Brand and pricing decisions can make a substantial contribution to profitable growth. Defining an effective brand architecture and solid pricing plans are complicated by the nature of the complex business-to-business environment. Blue Canyon`s framework helps suppliers understand how to weave brand positioning and pricing strategy into a consistent mix of decisions about product features, service offerings, business systems, channel partner relationships, and technology planning. When made from these foundations, brand and pricing decisions can help to perpetuate a virtuous cycle that creates value for shareholders and customers alike.
A. `Supplier Driven` and `Channel Driven` Business Models
Synopsis: For many business-to-business suppliers, their customer chains involve channel organizations and one or more stages of end customers, and such suppliers must address the business needs of their channel partners and also the business needs of its end customers. We find that there are two distinct clusters of business-to-business customer chains that involve both channel organizations and end customers. Some such customer chains involve a “Suppler Driven�? environment, in which the supplier has a direct and often intense relationship with the end customers one or more stages further down the chain. Other customer chains involve a `Channel Driven` environment in which the channel organization has most or all of the direct relationship with the end customer. In the context of overall strategy, the effectiveness of various tools for channel management can be linked to the `Supplier Driven` and `Channel Driven` environment, allowing suppliers to design programs with greater likelihood of success.
B. Realizing Shared Successes in Co-Destiny Relationships
Synopsis: Many business-to-business relationships involve customer chain structures within which success or failure ripples along the customer chain and impacts on all participants. Far too often, suppliers and channel organizations end up in an adversarial situation. A `Top Ten` list of the sources of conflicts includes factors such as competition for margin, price administration, conflicts in roles and responsibilities, and lack of attention to the partner organization. Success with end customers (and success against competing supplier-channel teams) requires that action plans be implemented to restore the focus on shared successes. We have identified actions that are common to the supplier-channel teams that have been successful, and defined steps through which these critical foundations can be put into place to ensure shared success in co-destiny relationships between suppliers and their channel partners.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
C. Sales Models in Business Markets with Complex Customer Chains
Synopsis: Complex business-to-business markets often require a combination of sales models, which, over time, can become confused and create conflict at every stage of the customer chains that are involved. In such situations, the firms involved can see a deterioration of revenues and profits, and also find that they must consume a significant level of resources in problem solving and dispute resolution. A resolution of this challenge can result from a categorization of the factors that are critical to success in the end customer markets involved. Such a categorization can be straightforwardly translated into decisions as to whether a Supplier Direct, Supplier Driven, or Channel Driven sales model is most appropriate. Once customers and market segments are correctly classified, the firm can then focus its energies on the offerings and relationships in which its efforts will be translated into success with customers and rewards to shareholders.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
D. Deleting Voicemail 666
Synopsis: Complex customer chains in business-to-business markets can be unraveled, with a focus on the service requirements of end customers one of the important tools that can be used in that process. End customer service requirements often span three distinct types of business-to-business services, and it is possible to organize a firm’s business and sales models into combinations defined by the types of services that are important to certain end customer segments. That categorization provides a basis for decisions about the appropriate customer chain structures that should be used to reach each end customer segment, and, subsequently, about the relationships that will be critical to success and about the roles and responsibilities that should be assigned to each of the partners in these relationships. Such decisions can strengthen a firm’s position in its end markets and limit the level of conflict that exists with the channel organizations through which it reaches some end customer segments.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
E. From Assessment to Action: Managing Distributor Relationships
Synopsis: This paper describes a simple, short assessment tool that can be quickly used by suppliers that sell through distributors and other channel relationships to assess where they stand with their key partners. This tool examines seven key dimensions along which there is a high likelihood of conflict between suppliers and distributors. The assessment process can yield insights that help to spotlight which relationships need attention and define the specific causes of channel conflict. Suppliers will gain insights from the assessment as to where they stand on the scales included within this assessment tool. Such insights can provide the basis for actions to ensure that these critical business relationships are well-aligned and headed towards shared successes.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
F. Creating `Win-Win` Supplier-Distributor Partnerships
Synopsis: Business-to-business suppliers that sell through distributors can use high-value `Technical`, `Logistic`, and `Program Management` services as an important part of their growth strategy. However, a lack of alignment between suppliers and their distributors, competency shortfalls, and the pressures of price-based competition can all thwart efforts to gain an advantage from high-value services. Suppliers must therefore identify and implement actions that ensure that their distributors are strong and effective partners in this strategy. When this is accomplished, the rewards in terms of growth and profitability can be substantial for both suppliers and distributors.
(We will be happy to mail you a reprint of this article from the professional journal in which it appeared, as it is not available in .pdf format. Please provide us with your mailing address.)
CASE STUDY: Implementation Of Strategic Account Plans:
The Challenge: A large global engine manufacturer had created a new division to capture certain important commercial OEM opportunities, based upon a previous strategy project undertaken by Blue Canyon Partners. The company asked for help with the implementation of previously developed Get-to-Market Plans. Click here to learn more.
