Introduction
Strategic Alliances between Key Customers and Suppliers
 Strategic Alliances, description, version 1.1 Copyright 1996, 2002 by Ingo Rheinbay The Meta-Consultants Perth / Fremantle Western Australia Ph: (08) 9314 2537, Mobile: 0410 437 800 |
The Flywheel Concept shows the 8 issues addressed by the method to build and maintain Strategic Alliances |
Overview of benefits and improvements
The benefits of Strategic Alliances are obtained on operational, tactical and strategic levels in the partner organisations. Examples of measurable benefits from our experience are:
- Reduced overall cost of goods and services supplied and / or purchased.
- Reduced cost of applying or processing goods and services purchased.
- Improved market position of the alliance partners.
- Improved quality of end-user goods and services.
- Shorter Time-To-Market for new and existing products.
- “can not do” becomes “can do” attitude.
- Increased number of innovations.
Actual Synergy
Experience shows results from the element Synergy:
- Improved product innovation and therefore, competitive position
- Smoothed routine business processes in “supplier’s” organisation.
- Smoothed routine business processes in “customer” organisation.
The innovation cycle is shortened and the crucial “time-to-market” is improved. In addition, innovated products and services are more competitive and easier to produce, through:
- The availability of the intricate knowledge about the internal processes in each organisation
- Combination and co-operation of intellectual potential in each organisation
In other words: delivering synergy.
Actual improvements of Routine Processes – Purchasing
Strategic Alliances often outperform the traditional purchasing approach: the value added by the acquisition and purchasing operation increases and becomes a long-term and sustainable quantity.
Measuring Benefits
Such benefits can be measured with suitable indicators, for example:
- Time-to-market,
- Number of obstacles (”can not do”) and
- Number of innovations.
Building a Strategic Alliance
The method provides a set of tools for each of the steps depicted in the graph below. A high level plan with more detailes is here – Barriers.
Impact Analysis by supply type
Objective: Analyse supplies and characteristics to select partners and goals for a Strategic Alliance.
Outcome: Successfully targeting the key suppliers and customers.
The relative importance of different supply categories.
(The example is derived from an actual past project where the method was applied.)
References
The method for strategic Alliances has, in whole or in part been applied in:
- Food producer and packaging supplier
- Machine / vehicle manufacturer and supplier of sub-assemblies
- Professional association and Internet Service Provider (ISP)