Say ‘Thanks’ to Your
Supply Chain Partner

ou know how sometimes something strikes you and you just can’t seem to stop thinking about it? It happened to me as we were preparing this issue, our annual 100

Great Supply Chain Partners report.

One of the nominators said this
about their logistics services
provider: “They allowed us to reduce
our freight spend and come in under
budget by $700,000 in 2010. We are
also on track to reduce our annual freight spending
by another $1m during 2011.”
Obviously, the nominating company has to be of
some size to throw those kinds of numbers around.

But I have to tell you, I was floored when I read that because that’s not chump change to any company, no matter how big they are. So, yeah, I guess they did nominate their 3PL as a pretty doggone good partner!

But I keep recalling it—and, yes, the high number does in fact have something to do with that—because it illustrates so well what the 100 Great Supply Chain Partners issue is all about: celebrating relationships with providers that have helped companies start up, overcome obstacles, or achieve new heights in some vital area. And, of course, it’s an opportunity to publicly say thank you to those providers for the product or service that made it all possible.

As always, we started the process for this issue more than six months in advance. That’s when we posted nomination forms on the SupplyChainBrain.com web site. Within short order, thousands (and I do mean thousands) of nominations began pouring in. Companies of every description—big Y

and small, all the verticals, you name it—listed the providers they feel have helped them boost productivity, cut costs, increase cus-tomer-service levels, or whatever.

Here’s the part that amazes me: nobody makes them do it. OK, has a provider never urged a customer to nominate them for this issue? Of course, they have. But even with that, nobody can make you follow through. It’s not in any contract that I know of that you have to say nice things about your provider.

Yet customers do just that, each year. That, it seems to me, attests to the validity of most of these comments.

Customers are acutely aware of the importance of their partners, that they rely on them, that without the expertise the partner brings to the relationship clients would not be able to concentrate solely on their so-called core competency. Indeed, many would have to build in-house departments to handle the services they now can outsource. In the case of a technology solution, that almost always would be impossible.

That has to be sourced externally, so you must exercise extreme care in picking that partner.

In the end, partnership is about more than money—whether chump change or not—it’s about survival in a difficult time. So, yeah, I keep thinking about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that company saved on transportation. Because it means the company is free to invest, to keep folks employed, to keep going. A little “thank you” is definitely in order.