satisfied with the current performance. Because both act as “channel
captains” in most of their supply chains, it is often unclear which
company's principles and processes are to be followed in managing
the common supply chain. They nevertheless share a willingness to resolve
the supply chain conflict through collaboration, and the ability to
collaborate are the key characteristics that make both parties attractive
in this relationship.
The willingness and ability to collaboratively develop efficient production
and supply chain solutions is largely what makes ContrMan attractive
toMobInfra. ContrMan has several plants located nearMobInfra
markets that provide manufacturing capacity and serve as buffers for
MobInfra. The companies collaborate on product development and design,
as well as in new product introduction activities, and ContrMan
serves as MobInfra's pilot supplier in many development projects. For
ContrMan, however, the primary interest in collaboration seems to be
locking the customer into the relationship; it appears to be attracted
to a prosperous, long-term partner that provides ample and growing
business opportunities. This dyad is perceived to bemuchmore successful
by the buyer than by the supplier.
In the PharCo–PacCo and PharCo–BulkMf dyads, the buyer expected
the supplier to collaborate on the development of production and supply
chain processes. Neither PacCo nor BulkMf expected the collaborative
efforts of PharCo, and both would have preferred just a stable,
long-term business relationship. PacCo nevertheless participated in
the development effort. BulkMf did not. PharCo perceived its relationshipwith
PacCo to be highly successful, and its relationshipwith BulkMf
to be rather unsuccessful, being satisfied only with the latter's price.
PacCo regarded its relationship with PharCo to be moderately successful,
despite the benefits of collaboration accruing unilaterally to PharCo.
BulkMf's negative perception of the relationship with PharCo largely
reflected disappointment that sales had not increased as expected.
MedDev, which aimed to differentiate itself from bulk manufacturers
by enhancing its value offerings and involving itself in its customers'
product development processes, made repeated efforts to
initiate collaborative development projects with PharCo. Interviewees
reported a great deal of potential for improvement in MedDev's relationship
with PharCo, leading the latter to pursue a relatively standard
agenda of collaboration with its supplier; joint efforts to improve effectiveness
and shorten lead times did not evolve into deep or strategic collaboration.
With the supplier in this case expecting collaboration with a
buyermore interested in just a competitive long-termpartner, power is
relatively balanced and neither party can unilaterally determine the
relationship's direction. MeDev, wanting to pursue more collaborative
development than occurred, was only modestly satisfied with the relationship,
whereas PharCo perceived the relationship to be much more
successful.
4.2. Drivers of attractiveness in strategic buyer–supplier relationships
Our analysis identified four main categories of both buyer and supplier
attractiveness: 1) economic-based attractiveness, 2) behavior-based attractiveness,
3) resource-based attractiveness, and 4) bridging-based attractiveness.
Each of these bases of attractiveness involves a set of
attractiveness attributes for both buyers and suppliers. Although buyer
and supplier attractiveness share many of the same attributes, the relative
importance of these attributes differs, and buyers and suppliers
interpreted many attributes of attractiveness differently.We next elaborate
the four bases of buyer and supplier attractiveness in the six dyads
studied.
4.2.1. Economic-based attractiveness
The basis of attractiveness for both buyers and suppliers is that the
relationship provides economic value. This came clearly forth in the
buyers' and suppliers' main objectives in developing the relationship
(see Table 2). Table 5 presents the drivers of economic attractiveness
that were identified in the study. Short-term economic value, as
determined by the customer's purchasing volume, fast and reliable payments,
price, and costs, was present in all dyads. However, because the
studied BSRs were considered strategic for both parties, long-term economic
value was emphasized in most interviews.
In supplier interviews, customer success, new customer businesses,
and the future of customers' industries were identified as being important
drivers of buyers' economic attractiveness. Suppliers seemed to
evaluate the development of the telecommunications or pharmaceuticals
industry sectors in which their buyers operated and the strength
of the buyers' positions in those sectors as well as whether the buyers
were investing new business areas the suppliers found attractive. The
following quotes from the supplier interviews illustrate the suppliers'
holistic and long-term view of buyers' economic attractiveness:
“MobInfra is attractive for us because the industry has become one
that uses a lot of computers, so there is a lot of business potential
for us. Traditional telecom world is becoming closer to IT world.”
(Key account manager, CoCom)
“We see MobInfra as one of the winners in the future because the
company is in good shape.” (Worldwide account manager,
ContrMan)
“We find PharCo attractive because they operate in the pharmaceutical
industry, for which the market is increasing.” (Key account
manager, MedDev)
In buyer interviews, price/cost, delivery, and quality were generally
believed by interviewees to constitute the basic characteristics of an attractive
supplier, a finding consistent with previous studies that found
these attributes to constitute the “hygiene” factors in buyer–supplier
partnerships (Goffin et al., 2006). “Delivery” refers to all factors related
to the timely and accurate fulfillment of buyers' needs, and “quality” refers
to product quality. In the PharCo–BulkMf dyad, for example,
recurring quality problems were clearly the most important factor
undermining the relationship. However, in most dyads, because the
suppliers' productswere perceived to be high quality, quality reinforced
the relationship. The SET-derived comparison level (CL) concept appropriately
explains the attributes of supplier attractiveness related to operative
performance. Previous experience informed each interviewee's
perception of what constituted an acceptable performance level, deviations
fromwhich either reinforced or degraded the relationship. The following
answers to the question “What are the characteristics thatmake
the supplier attractive?” from buyers' interviews illustrate what they
thought indicated suppliers' economic attractiveness:
“The price competitiveness (of HiTecCo). The supplier must not
make losses, but they need to possess enough resources to copewith
a narrow profit margin.” (Category manager, MobInfra)
“Price (of ContrMan), although one must be aware of the risks of too
low price, for example the use of child labor. Low price should be
based on effective operations.” (Supplier manager, MobInfra)
“Price (of BulkMf). Market situation forces pharmaceutical firms to
sell the generic products cheap. The situation is different with
unique products.” (Purchasing group manager, PharCo)