Apress Supplier Relationship Management, How to Maximize Vendor Value and Opportunity (2014) by Stephen Easton & Michael D. Hales & Alenka Triplat

Author:Stephen Easton & Michael D. Hales & Alenka Triplat
Format: epub
Tags: Management, Purchasing & Buying
ISBN: 9781430262596
Google: ojpYngEACAAJ
Amazon: 1430262591
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Heartland: Calbury Races Ahead

Thomas was in a rueful mood. Laura sat down. He opened up his iPad and handed it to her and asked her to look at the screen. “Calbury sure is doing well with that ‘Taste Fresh Longer’ packaging that it sources from Marshfield. See this announcement here of the extra sales that the company is driving from it? Well, the company’s not just making extra sales on the product but both companies are also making really nice margins.”

“I saw that earlier as well,” said Laura. “The joint venture that Marshfield and Calbury set up has a patent on it, as you know. They are really not interested in making it available to anyone else.”

“I heard talk that they might be making it available soon,” Thomas offered.

“So far, it is just rumors,” Laura speculated. “I think what they will do is make a less-sophisticated version of the packaging available more widely. They are worried about competition concerns, and Marshfield does have an interest in driving more volume than they get purely from Calbury. But the most sophisticated formulation of the packaging will remain exclusive to Calbury we hear—at least for the foreseeable future.”

“Right now, our response is to work with another company to develop an alternative that does not infringe the patent,” suggested Thomas. “That will take time and be expensive. Or we just hope that Marshfield’s competitors will do something anyway. In the meantime, our retail customers are keener to push Calbury brands in what is one of our prime categories. Not a great place to be in.”

“You know,” said Laura, “things could have been very different.”

“How?” asked Thomas. “Marshfield has been quite a peripheral supplier to us for quite a while. We have only kept buying the product that we needed for logistical reasons, really. But the company has been one of Calbury’s major suppliers for a long time. Calbury did a lot to build the relationship and ecosystem that we are now seeing in place. Our failure has not been not doing the same thing with someone else.”

“You know it was not always like that though, Thomas. A few years before you joined from Autowerke as CPO, the company was actually seen as a key supplier. I remember that it supplied our Italian plant. It was really significant.”

“I did not know that. What happened?”

“We had the great ‘ripping of film’ drama about five years ago.”

“I did hear someone refer to that,” said Thomas. “What has that got to do with it?”

“Well, Marshfield was our biggest film supplier. You know how production people are with film. A lot of the specifications are custom-made and take practice. Accordingly, they are hard to codify. The production people hate changes, even if they might be beneficial.”

“Right, tell me about it,” said Thomas.

“OK, so Marshfield came to us with a great idea to make the film stronger and even more lustrous to the touch while still being thin. It would make the product look better. It was an interesting innovation, but our production people were reluctant to do it.

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