Business Relationships For Competitive Advantage

In order to defend themselves against commoditization and disruptive innovation, leading companies are now gaining competitive advantage through networked business models and tapping into talent from outside their company. Rather than implementing rigid "built-to-last" processes, organizations are now constructing more fluid "built-to-adapt" networks in which each member focuses on its differentiation and relies increasingly on its partners, suppliers, and customers to provide the rest. With contributions by the biggest names in business network transformation, this book offers cutting edge research and an in-depth exploration of critical topics such as customer value, supply networks, product leadership, global processes, operations, innovation, relationship management, and IT. The book also provides practical guidance for successfully engaging in BNT, and is filled with illustrative case studies from some of the world’s largest and most successful companies. It contains the vital information business leaders need to enable their companies to deliver faster innovation to customers at lower cost by sharing investments, assets, and ideas across their business networks. An essential resource for all business leaders, Business Network Transformation shows how to transform any business network to achieve competitive advantage and increase the bottom line. Contributors include Geoffrey Moore, Philip Lay, Marco Iansiti, Mohan Sawhney, Ranjay Gulati, David Kletter, Venkat Venkatraman, John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, Gautam Kasthurirangan, Randall Russell, Henry Chesbrough, Jeffrey Dyer, and Andrew McAfee.

This book provides the first summary and critical appraisal of the thinking that currently informs the management of business relationships, from the perspectives of both the buyer and supplier. The authors argue that these approaches are one-dimensional and instead recommend a more holistic approach based on power, interaction and portfolio perspectives. The book provides evidence of how relationships can be aligned and misaligned in practice, using eighteen examples drawn from a variety of business cases and circumstances.

Relationship management (RM) is an essential part of business, but its success as a business model can be hard to measure, with some firms embracing a model that is truly relationship-orientated, while others claim to be relationship-orientated but in fact prefer transactional short-term gain. This open access book aims to develop a mid-range theory of relationship management, examining truly relationship-orientated firms to discover not only what qualities these firms have that make them successful at the RM model, but also what benefits this model has for the firm. It addresses questions like how RM-mature companies achieve and sustain competitive advantage, and what determines the scale and scope of these firms, illustrating with case studies. This book will be of interest to scholars studying leadership and strategy, especially those interested in relationship management, business ethics and corporate social responsibility. It will also be of interest to professionals looking to develop their understanding of relationship management.

Business Models for Transforming Customer Relationships What if there were a way to turn occasional, sporadic transactions with customers into long-term, continuous relationships--while simultaneously driving dramatic improvements in operational efficiency? What if you could break your existing trade-offs between superior customer experience and low cost? This is the promise of a connected strategy. New forms of connectivity--involving frequent, low-friction, customized interactions--mean that companies can now anticipate customer needs as they arise, or even before. Simultaneously, enabled by these technologies, companies can create new business models that deliver more value to customers. Connected strategies are win-win: Customers get a dramatically improved experience, while companies boost operational efficiency. In this book, strategy and operations experts Nicolaj Siggelkow and Christian Terwiesch reveal the emergence of connected strategies as a new source of competitive advantage. With in-depth examples from companies operating in industries such as healthcare, financial services, mobility, retail, entertainment, nonprofit, and education, Connected Strategy identifies the four pathways--respond-to-desire, curated offering, coach behavior, and automatic execution--for turning episodic interactions into continuous relationships. The authors show how each pathway creates a competitive advantage, then guide you through the critical decisions for creating and implementing your own connected strategies. Whether you're trying to revitalize strategy in an established company or disrupt an industry as a startup, this book will help you: Reshape your connections with your customers Find new ways to connect with existing suppliers while also activating new sources of capacity Create the right revenue model Make the best technology choices to support your strategy Integrating rich examples, how-to advice, and practical tools in the form of "workshop chapters" throughout, this book is the ultimate resource for creating competitive advantage through connected relationships with your customers and redefined connections in your industry.

The newly emerging area of relationship marketing has become a major focal point for leading-edge practitioners in their search for sustainable competitive advantage. This book, which complements the best-selling title Relationship Marketing, presents a selection of some of the best writing on the subject by experts from around the world. The editors have supplemented these articles with linking summaries and commentaries which together highlight the breadth of this important topic. Issues such as customer retention, employee satisfaction, supplier relations, and management of service quality are brought together to provide an integrated approach to the development of a relationship marketing strategy.

In today's connected global marketplace, success and failure is bound up with the management of your inter-organisational partnerships. Competition is no longer between individual organisations but between alliances of companies and networks of supply chains. Richard Gibbs and Andrew Humphries provide a practical guide to the management process and skill sets needed for co-ordinating the business activities that are essential to creating a competitive advantage. Their eight partnership types developed from earlier research help readers adapt their relationship strategies to the different opportunities that present themselves and focus their greatest time and resources on the collaborations that offer the greatest value. The text includes an explanation of the context for collaboration, the principles and drivers for success, as well as techniques for appraisal and management. This is an excellent overview of the tools, techniques and philosophies behind an enterprise’s successful management of its strategically important relationships. Enterprise Relationship Management will help ensure your organisation has the requisite ability to form, manage, retire and exit partnerships in a fluid and agile way. Whether you are in sales or marketing or finance and operations, this book will show you how to get the most from your partnerships.

How can managers determine which types of partnerships will provide the best pay-offs? This book presents a partnership model which provides a structured and repeatable process to effectively and efficiently build and maintain tailored business relationships that may become an asset for executives looking for competitive advantage.