Becoming a preferred customer one step at a time

A preferred customer is a buying organization who receives better treatment than other customers from a supplier, in terms of product quality and availability, support in the sourcing process, delivery or/and prices. The decision to become a preferred customer implies a continuous commitment by the purchaser to a complex, expensive and often uncertain process. It is important to use a strategic approach, as well as appropriate tactics. Based on well-known models on the development of buyer-supplier relationship, on customer portfolio analysis and on the emergent literature in customer attractiveness and preferred customer status, we suggest four steps to become – and remain – a preferred customer: initial attraction, performance, engagement and sustainability. The process takes the perspective of a buyer willing to obtain the preferential status and focuses on the strategies and tactics that could influence the supplier's decision of granting this status. The proposed process considers that the supplier is continuously comparing the value offered by the customer to its expectations, and to the value offered by other customer relationships.     

Reconfiguring supplier relationships between local and global: History matters

Small and medium-sized companies are increasingly facing international markets as part of their processes of growth and development. A great deal of literature deals with different patterns of growth and international development that are specific to SMEs with respect to large companies. Fewer studies have been conducted on the reconfiguration of company supplier relationships involved in these processes. This paper focuses on the role played by the consolidated set of company supplier relationships when the firm faces some critical stages in its process of development, i.e., growth from small to mid-sized and the implementation of new ventures abroad accessing new business relationships with international suppliers. A multiple and longitudinal case study shows how the local set of supplier relationships of four mid-sized Italian mechanical companies acting in industrial districts has played an important role in shaping the emerging set of supplier relationships and addressing companies' actions in their growth and internationalization processes.     

Diversification strategy with random yield suppliers for a mean–variance risk-sensitive manufacturer

We consider the diversification strategy for a mean–variance risk-sensitive manufacturer with unreliable suppliers. We first analyze the linear model and find that the suppliers are selected according to the descending order of their contributed marginal expected profit, and increasing the manufacturer’s risk-averseness leads to a more even allocation of demand across the suppliers. Then, we study the general newsvendor model. By approximating the leftover inventory with a normal distribution, we establish the general properties of the active supplier set and show that the supplier selection rule is similar to that under the risk-neutral setting when the demand uncertainty is large. Moreover, we conjecture that the selection rule also applies when the demand uncertainty is low, which we verify with an extensive numerical study. Our paper makes two contributions: First, we establish the properties of the optimal diversification strategy and develop corresponding insights into the trade off between cost and reliability under the mean–variance framework. Second, we perform comparative statics on the optimal solution, with a particular emphasis on investigating how changes in the supplier’s cost or reliability affect the risk-averse manufacturer’s ordering decisions and customer service level.     

电信运营商采购管理系统优化研究

文中从电信运营商采购管理的全局出发,提出并构建了采购管理系统优化的概念框架,在此基础上分析了采购管理系统的构成、管理层次的划分、采购职能的分配,以及采购工作的具体流程。以集中化、精细化管理为指导原则,文中认为采购管理包括四方面核心内容,即供应商准入管理(SAM)、供应商选择管理(SSM)、供应商关系管理(SRM)和供应商监控管理(SMM)。建议电信运营商采购管理部门除应重视招标采购职能建设外,还应强化供应商准入管理、供应商关系管理和供应商监控管理三个管理职能,在采购流程中应增加供应商资源库的建设,中标供应商的分类管理,以及奖惩机制的建立等。     

Indian textile suppliers' sustainability evaluation using the grey approach

Textile supply chains consist of multinational garment retailers (customers), garment manufacturers (suppliers), and ancillary suppliers (suppliers to manufacturers). This paper evaluates suppliers' within the Indian textile and clothing industry (both garment manufacturers and ancillary suppliers) using sustainability criteria. Examining a sample of sixty-three suppliers and six sustainability criteria (i.e. discrimination, abuse of human right, child labor, long working hours, unfair competition, and pollution), we categorize suppliers into the three categories of ‘good performer’, moderate performer’, and ‘performance not up to expectation’. Since all the criteria are potentially subjective, we have employed the grey approach for analysis. The results indicate that the criterion of long working hours is a critical one for both categories of suppliers; in the case of garment manufacturers, we found that pollution and unfair competition were the most important criteria. In addition, employing child labor was found to be a critical criterion in the case of ancillary suppliers.     

Partnering in the construction industry—Problems and opportunities

During recent years partnering has been on the top of the management agenda in the construction industry. Despite this attention there is limited and partly contradicting evidence of the impact of these efforts. The objective of this literature-based paper is to explore why it has been difficult to realise potential partnering benefits on the strategic level, while partnering in individual projects has improved construction performance. The analysis builds on a comparison of the features of business relationships in construction with the characteristics of so called ‘high-involvement relationships’ based on close cooperation. It is concluded that prevailing supply arrangements established to handle the particular conditions in the construction industry makes it unlikely for partnering to reach outside the individual project. Taking the step to strategic partnerships would require modification of some of the basic assumptions and norms of industry efficiency. On the basis of this analysis we explore potential consequences of modifications of current behaviour with respect to decentralisation and competitive tendering. The paper is finalised with a suggestion for a differentiated approach to partnering.     

运用模糊综合决策进行供应商选择

供应链中供应商是否适合企业对到核心企业生产的好坏、成本的高低和产品质量的优劣影响很大。利用模糊综合决策给出了选择供应商的一种简单易行的办法,并举例说明了该方法的可行性与准确性。