Communicating With Vendors

If you're like most marketing managers, vendors are the most overlooked audience in your communications plan.

In fact, in my informal survey of four marketing executives - none of them even thought about including vendors in their communications strategy. It's quite an oversight, especially if key suppliers contribute a big chunk of value to your product or service - or reside on your critical path.

Why do marketers do this?
First, they are so focused on customers, investors and their own internal audiences that they simply forget how important it is to keep vendors in the communications loop.

Second, they fail to assess the importance of the supplier's role in the organization's value chain.  Or, they don't know.

Last, they assign such communications to a junior associate, yet another bad decision.

When you plan, ask yourself these questions
How dependent is your business on suppliers? Which ones are transactional? And which ones possess critical talents you've helped nurture? Where have you made the biggest investments in suppliers? If a key supplier vanished, would the business impact be high, medium or low?

Think about those vendors that are on your critical path. How are you communicating with them about upcoming changes in your business and how they need to adapt and plan for them?

Do your suppliers understand their inter-dependencies with each other? Does Supplier A know that you need him to deliver before you can fully exploit the value of Supplier B?

Keeping vendors in the dark
Lots of organizations think it's unwise to let vendors know how important they are. They keep them in the dark as a negotiation tactic. After all, if a vendor knows they're important, they will raise their price (more flawed thinking on the organization's part).

If a vendor plays a prominent role in your value chain, they know it. You're not fooling them.

If important vendors understand their role, they are in a position to make higher contribution. They know themselves and their capabilities better than you. If you communicate the highlights of your business plan and where they fit in, they feel important -- and take your account more seriously.  Of course, you will want to get NDAs in place when appropriate.

How vendors view you
Most organizations have no idea how unevenly stacked their resources are, compared with what the vendors apply to their accounts. Your Cisco representative has an entire team at his disposal to help him propose, sell and service your account. In fact, the management horsepower on the vendor side is often five times greater than that of your procurement function.

What you can do
If you feel you are unevenly stacked, talk to your vendor relations people and even the score. Don't let junior people manage relationships with Cisco, Oracle or IBM.

Have brainstorming sessions with key vendors. Share the highlights of marketing plans and where you're going. Ask them to get creative in how they can help you achieve your goals. Put some pressure on them. They will feel honored to get the insight into your account - and who knows, they may contribute some really good ideas.

Provide vendors regular communication updates. Be clear in your communications about what you expect from your vendors. Let them know how they help - and how they let you down when they don't deliver.  When you do this, your account status goes up and the vendor's management gets you on their radar - never a bad thing when you need favors (and you will).

Introduce key vendors to each other. Vendors will emphasize with you if they can get a closer look at your operation and how they fit it. Again, when you need favors from Vendor A to take advantage of an opportunity with Vendor B, it will help a great deal if they've met each other.

Develop an understanding of the market your vendors operate in. You can't communicate with vendors in a vacuum. If a vendor's importance rises due to shifts in your market strategy, anticipate what it does to them. Never assume that the capabilities of a strategic vendor are keeping up with your market plans.

Create a joint account plan. Your vendor teams are consuming considerable management time thinking about how they are going to sell to you. Another chance to even the score. Let them know how you want to buy from them.

Otherwise, as Andy Kyte of Gartner says, "Having a supplier with an account plan is like having a restaurant decide when you will visit and what you will order. Not exactly customer centric, is it?"