In this article we have considered the defining issue of customer-supplier duality in service organizations. This duality implies a particular type of supply chain whichis bidirectional in nature. Thesebidirectional supply chains are similar to traditional supply chains in some respects, but quite different in others. Interesting characteristics of bidirectional supply chains are that they are typically short, have implied JIT, and have inherent communication of value-added expectations. Further, the costing of inputs is peculiar, since service providersdo not typically pay for customer-supplied inputs.
There are various managerial implications of customer-supplier duality. Supply-basereductionisnotareasonableoptionwhenthesuppliersarecustomers. Bidirectional supply chains can be integrated by various methods such as communication, partnering, and customer-supplier development. Communication is particularly important to prevent compounding the effects of possible quality problems. Partnering and supplier development are often difficult given the magnitude of customer-suppliers to deal with and the inability to tie them to the organization. Some service providers are able to partner with diverse customer-suppliers in ways that are relatively efficient and effective, such as through the Internet. Exploring methods for mass-partnering is an interesting topic for future research.