BY MICHAEL POWER
“Maybe you don’t want to be fully collaborative, especially during tough times and you’ve got tough targets,” he says. “You’ve got to turn the screw a little.”
A MATTER OF TRUST
SUPPLIER COLLABORATION COMES FROM CREATING VALUE FOR BOTH SIDES COVID-19 has made partnerships more important than ever. With the pandemic yet to loosen its grip, collaboration with suppliers is paramount in fostering innovation, develop products, mitigate risk and keep goods flowing. To increase that collaboration, supply chain leaders must move away from transactional exchanges with suppliers towards partnerships focused on value creation, says Jon Rosemberg, senior vice-president, merchant operations & program enablement for Indigo Books & Music. While some exchanges must remain transactional, Rosemberg stresses that in times of crisis, relationships that resemble partnerships are most likely to create that value for all parties. Developing these links starts with both communication and building trust to understand each organization’s true interests, says Rosemberg. Open dialogue involves acknowledging tough times and resolving to support key clients through them. “When you build that trust and have an open conversation, in my experience you tend to see that, many times, the interests of each of the parties can be complementary as opposed to being a zero-sum game,” he says. “You need to be able to have those conversations, which you won’t do if you’re only focused on margins and trying to extract every dollar from each other.” Rosemberg recommends revisiting vendor scorecards to understand who’s at the top of the list, ranking those vendors by spend, business 20 APRIL 2021
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growth or other metrics, while assessing where the most value lies. As well, with supply chains upended by the pandemic and facing other issues like shipping container costs, open dialogue with suppliers is more important than ever. “The amount of stress that COVID has added to operations and the amount of reactiveness that an organization needs in order to survive in this environment is forcing us to have a lot more conversations and to make sure that those conversations are about ideation,” Rosemberg says. “They need to be solution oriented because finger-pointing really doesn’t work.” A collaborative focus may also help to attract and retain talent. Younger supply chain and procurement professionals value partnership, Rosemberg adds. While haggling with suppliers may sometimes be necessary, younger professionals don’t want to do the job that way. “People want to build engagement and interact and not see it as a rivalry, but as a collaboration,” he says. “Ultimately, it’s people dealing with people.” On the whole, collaborative people make for better recruitment candidates, says Neil Drew, director at recruitment company Winchesters. Communication skills are key, and collaboration with stakeholders rates high in desirable skills. Yet how important a knack for supplier collaboration is depends on the role, Drew adds. It’s definitely important for vendor-management roles. Yet a sourcing role may call for less-developed supplier collaboration skills.
THE SPECIAL SAUCE Kathy Cheng, president of apparel manufacturer WS & Co. and founder of Redwood Apparel, echoes the importance of human connection in fostering collaboration with suppliers. Cheng has two perspectives: as a businessperson dealing with her own suppliers and as a supplier herself. The company has manufactured garments in Canada for over 30 years, Cheng says. The closest relationships with both suppliers and clients (which Cheng refers to as brand partners) are the ones spanning 10, 15 or even 20 years. The key to maintaining and deepening those relationships is to forge those collaborative, strategic ties, she says. Cheng refers to deep-rather-than-wide relationships as a “special sauce” that has allowed the company to thrive. That collaborative approach also means that Cheng’s company acts similar to an extension of its brand partners’ product development and production teams. “We’re focused on what we’re great at and it allows our brand partners to focus on what they’re great at – be it distribution, marketing, sales and branding and all that other stuff,” she says. “Instead of just, ‘I’m buying from you,’ it’s ‘we’re a part of you. We’re a part of your team.’” Like any relationship, success lies in open communication, Cheng adds. For example, the company employs an embellishing coordinator who is responsible for visiting its embellishing decorators daily to see how production is going. Brand partners also share information so that the company can support and service them as well as possible. “We’re very close with our partners, so much so that we also recognize that we’re a significant part of their business as well,” she says. “It’s not like we own them by any means, but it’s all these years with mutual respect and really being transparent.” The pandemic also highlights the need for collaboration, Cheng says, noting the company has set up weekly calls or Zoom meetings with brand partners in an effort to maintain close communication. That helps to bridge some of the physical distance that remote work has injected into business. That virtual connection helps to ensure everyone is aligned and improves efficiency. It has also lowered risk. “It gives our brand partners visibility of the supply chain,” Cheng says. “It allows SUPPLY PROFESSIONAL
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