In conclusion to this section we emphasize that benefits of closer relationships with suppliers are considerable, but these benefits can only be gained with trust; unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen in most volatile competitive markets without mindset changes. It appears that technology and specialization can help to alleviate mistrust as can some form of investment by the customer in the supplier. The situation can only be problem-free if equity is invested in the supplier when the goals between companies become identified and truly common. Ell ram[21] gives a systematic view of what seems to be the typical inter-company relationship throughout the supply chain which we shall subsequently exploit in matrix form.