A new book by Mike Marks, Tim Horan, and Mike Emerson of Indian River Consulting Group discusses how distributors and manufacturers can manage conflict successfully.
Distributor and supplier relationships are a perennial subject of business executives. Whether at trade conventions or in boardrooms or customers' offices, the topic engenders heated discussions about the problem du jour that usually end with someone saying, “There's got to be a better way!”
These are complex economic relationships between trading partners, and much of the past research on them has been prescriptive rather than diagnostic, focusing on making the relationship work despite the problems instead of trying to find out what went wrong in the first place or why. Clearly, distributors and suppliers have common ground. Their relationships must be based on mutual trust, they need to have honest and candid communications, and they both have to continue to grow.