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The four principles
of partnering
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Mutuality: A
common purpose with mutual benefit.
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Commitment:
Parties are prepared to commit resources to the mutual
endeavor
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Clarity: Each
party is clear about who is doing what.
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Openness: Both
parties are prepared to raise issues concerning the quality of
the working relationship.
Once I asked a supplier of a large retail chain” "What is the
state of partnering in the food sector today?" Here is his
answer.
"Where do I start?
The retailers are all using the term but few, if any, show any
understanding of how to make it work. In truth there is no
partnership - the term is no more than a commercial convenience
for the stronger 'partner', the retailer, to prey upon the
weaker partner, the supplier. I think I know how it feels to be
raped. I would put it that strongly; it is a mental raping.
I find myself licking my wounds from each of their successive
actions. For example, I can no longer be confident that the
products I supply won't be put out to tender - they could and do
seek alternative suppliers at the drop of a hat, I'm sure they
see this as a normal part of their job. I can no longer be
confident about what will be going on next. There is no trust in
the relationship with retailers.
In fact you can hardly call it a relationship, in today's world
relationships count for little. What counts is short term, the
bottom line. In short, the accountants rule". "Last month,
without any warning, one of the retailers invoiced and asked me
to pay Euro 20,000 per line in order to secure the retailer's
commitment to giving 'priority treatment' to the lines."
This is not the only example of financial coercion in this
sector. Another retailer sought a 'refund' of monies paid as the
retailer's shareholders were not impressed with the bottom line.
It is as though the idea of partnership translates into demands
for help from the strong to the weak during hard times, but no
more than a slogan for normal times.
The problem comes down to lack of method. My informant gave an
example: "One retailer adopted the 'partnering' slogan about
five years ago. They decided we should all work on an integrated
transport system. Clearly this is important; transport is a
major cost. But what they did is ask for our views and then they
just set up a system and told all suppliers to use it. We all
needed to work on how to make it work, but that wasn't done. The
result was not good; their planners had failed to understand the
logistics. Very quickly we found that things were not working
well and costs were rising.
Then they made things worse. Instead of scrapping it, they
sub-contracted the work to a haulier, assuming they'd know this
business better. They maintained their insistence that suppliers
should use this transport and as a consequence suppliers had to
pay more than the market norm. To make things worse, the
suppliers discovered that the retailer was also taking a payment
for the volume of transport provided.
As suppliers became aware of how they had been duped, there
began an attitude of 'we'll remember this and we'll get one over
on you next time', and so the adversarial spiral was set. As my
informant said "This is not partnership, it is selfishness" and
selfishness breeds mistrust."
Despite his experience, my informant remains philosophical; he
can see that it is the systems that are at fault, not the
players. He observes that today's buyers are only doing their
job, and that job is all about meeting targets. "The analysts
have become too powerful in driving "short-termism" in our
organizations, the buyers and suppliers are merely pawns in the
game. But the net effect is we all lose.
He, like me, sees the irony that by their methods, they fail to
achieve what could be done - they could out-achieve their
targets by substantial amounts if only they changed their
attitude.
He puts it this way: "If only they realized that partnering is
not about 'being nice' instead of being nasty. It is about
working hard together to achieve a common objective. It is not a
soft option, but it is a smart option". |
