Risk, resilience and relationships
Collaboration involves a group of people sharing their ideas and skills to achieve a common goal. We know that working collaboratively, instead of individually, helps improve productivity and provides a sense of purpose to all involved.
The key challenges that remain in the area of collaboration are: • Examine how you have behaved and if this has been consistent with the partnership type relationships and customer of choice status you have been looking for. • Talk to suppliers about developing shared goals and objectives that will help you both minimise the impact of future disruption. • Make more use of open and transparent 360 reviews of relationships to identify the changes to working practices and behaviours that might be necessary. • Increase supplier engagement in line with what has been proven as the most effective risk mitigation strategy.
It is, therefore, difficult to understand why many of the key collaboration metrics that have shown steady improvement – including during the early phases of the current crisis have been reversed. It’s only possible to speculate that relationships have become increasingly strained. If the foundations of open and transparent relationships are not sufficiently strong, things can go the wrong way. Another consideration is the areas in which collaboration is being sought. For example, it’s often far easier to collaborate in pursuit of an aspirational goal, such as increasing mutual value, as opposed to a fight for survival where old behaviours can tend to re-emerge.
During a crisis, it is often the less tangible benefits of good supplier management and being a customer of choice that will make the most difference.
Biopharma business UCB is aware of its mutual dependencies with suppliers and is working to ensure its links are robust, consistent and beneficial to both
The traditional, linear supply chain is disappearing as companies find themselves increasingly interconnected and working with suppliers as part of a joint ecosystem, says Sébastien Bals. The CPO at global biopharmaceutical company UCB says where once there was a transactional approach to the buyer/supplier exchange; there is now “far more ownership and co-development”. “It means a different type of relationship, which is far less commoditised and creates more
interdependencies,” he says. “It makes you part of an ecosystem of partners with longer-term goals and ambitions and requires a level of collaboration that far exceeds what we in the life sciences sector have known in the past.” Headquartered in Belgium, UCB has more than 8,500 employees; operates in 40 countries; and invests around 25% of its €5bn-plus annual revenue into cutting-edge scientific research to meet unmet patient needs. It focuses on helping those with severe immunological or neurological diseases, including epilepsy, Parkinson’s, osteoporosis and rheumatism. In addition to
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