Making Alliances Work

You are very successful in your core business: You understand the key elements of 'getting it right' and over the years you have become leaner and more efficient in those areas.
And around you is a wealth of possible opportunities for extending your service, or making it even more efficient or flexible: Numerous specialists and solution providers have ideas to grow or improve your business still further.
But you are hesitant. You know from experience that the courtship of promised miracles can often deteriorate into a marriage of tension, regret and resignation.
This was the situation facing a major retail chain as they considered a new proposal for a state of the art Point-of-Sale system. On the one hand, here was a key weapon in their competitive battle with their key rival. On the other hand, was a history of shortfall and recrimination.
Their solution was to move beyond the traditional, often adversarial, customer/supplier relationship and set up a virtual team which was jointly responsible for deliverables benefiting both businesses.
Key to the success of the virtual team was the use of QFD to develop a cohesive set of objectives which had the commitment of all team members, and which could be used to evaluate and improve team performance (see photo above). The result was a faster and more effective solution than either company had experienced before.
To read the case study of this work, click here
To understand more about QFD, click here