The Quest To Become A Strategic Supplier
How You Can Become More Strategically Important To Your Customers
4 Ways To Increase Your Importance
The objective of this insight is to help you to identify 3-5 ways that you can become more important / strategic within a key account.
To help you complete the above, here are 5 strategies to help you increase your importance:
Strategy 1: Go beyond features & benefits to engage with the customer in discussions about:
- Success & how it is measured (metrics, KPIs, etc.)
- Their strategy, goals & vision
- Any risks, dependencies or challenges
Strategy 2: Influence or shape:
- the design
- the specification
- the standard/metrics used
- the project plan
- the manual
- the workflow
- the process
Strategy 3: Look beyond the customer’s stated needs to What they are really trying to achieve, including:
- The drive for efficiency, cost reduction & innovation
- Their key business drivers
- Their competitive strategy
- What peers & competitors are doing
- What is happening in their industry
- Unmet needs
- Emerging trends and requirements for change
Strategy 4: Identify the impediments to the customer’s performance or success:
- Hassles & frustrations
- Hidden complexity
- Compliance burden
- Unspoken risks
- Politics (incl. divergent stakeholder expectations & agendas)
- Competing projects & priorities
Strategy 5: Innovate
- Solve problems that matter now
- Resolve conflicts / tensions
- Reconcile divergent views/objectives
- Bring new perspectives
- Enhance capability
- Facilitate / manage change
- Add new value
- Bridge existing gaps
- Connect functions, or systems
Peter Viljoen: 
StartupSandy: 
the Senator: 
Martin Lindeskog: 
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