Key strategies to strengthen supplier collaboration
Your organization was built on strong relationships. Customers, employees, and vendors are all partners in delivering outstanding service. It’s no different with suppliers. In today’s global, interconnected economy, long-term supplier relationships depend on mutual support and aligned processes — in other words, collaboration.
Unfortunately, not every relationship is naturally collaborative. When a system disruption or a misunderstanding happens, you need techniques to reinforce supplier collaboration and reduce risks or friction that might threaten your business.
Key highlights:
- Supplier collaboration is a strategic partnership where a business and its suppliers align on shared goals and work together to generate mutual value
- Supply chain collaboration challenges like disruptions and limited technology integration can hinder relationships and delay operations if not addressed properly
- To foster strong supply chain partnerships, prioritize clear communication and secure information exchange with your suppliers
- As the leader in Intelligent Content Management, Box makes it easy to scale up supply chain collaboration initiatives by providing a secure platform for managing content across teams and partners
What is supplier collaboration?
Supplier collaboration is the strategic partnership between a company and its suppliers, built on trust, transparency, and mutual goals rather than simple transactions. It often involves coordinating joint workflows and using systems and tools that enable shared problem-solving.
Supplier collaboration has different levels:
- Direct collaboration between an organization and its individual suppliers, such as a company in the life sciences industry collaborating with a raw material supplier
- Supplier network collaboration with multiple partners, like a construction company working with architects, engineers, and subcontractors
- Supply chain collaboration across the entire value chain — when, for example, a clothing manufacturer works with suppliers and retail companies to ensure sustainable production and distribution
Why is supply chain collaboration important?
Supply chain collaboration allows businesses to reduce costs associated with goods and services, minimize the risk of supply disruptions, and meet compliance requirements and sustainability goals.
All stakeholders, from logistic providers to end customers, benefit from supply chain collaboration initiatives, contributing to a more competitive and resilient network. Findings from Anvil’s State of Supply Chain Survey indicate that 51% of companies plan to collaborate more closely with suppliers to better forecast demand and mitigate supply uncertainty.
If you plan to strengthen ties with your suppliers, you may realize other benefits of supply chain collaboration:
- Improved information sharing: Collaborative project planning and data platforms enable more efficient communication with your supply chain partners, leading to more transparent decisions
- Product quality and innovation: Closer collaboration in the supply chain builds a deeper understanding of processes and materials, facilitating innovative product development
- Increased customer satisfaction: With better forecasting and coordination, a collaborative supply chain contributes to fewer stockouts and ensures customers can get the products they need
Who benefits most from collaborative supply chain relationships?
Organizations with collaborative cultures and information systems that enable easy data exchange and usage, such as an Intelligent Content Management platform, typically get the most out of collaborative supply chain relationships. Depending on your collaboration model, multiple stakeholders can benefit, including:
- Manufacturers: Reduce inventory costs and get better demand visibility
- Suppliers: Improve forecasting and experience long-term contracts
- Retailers: Minimize product stockouts and make their items consistently available
- End consumers: Purchase better products with more competitive prices
Common supply chain collaboration challenges
A survey by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) found that 86% of manufacturing companies have been adjusting their supply chains to reduce risks, with potential causes including geopolitical instability and increased taxes.
Understanding the most pressing challenges of supply chain collaboration is the first step to resolving issues and strengthening your current supplier relationships.
Let's review the reasons why supply chain collaboration projects fail.
- Disruptions: Without a disaster recovery plan and robust security controls as part of your supply chain collaboration strategies, data breaches and natural disasters can lead to delays in production and compromise the security of the entire network
- Communication issues: Language barriers and a lack of standardized platforms equipped with cloud collaboration tools cause misunderstandings or slow down operations
- Limited technology integration: If partners struggle to integrate AI and other emerging technologies, your supplier relationship can’t fully leverage automation and data-driven insights, missing opportunities for reducing operational costs and improving efficiency
- Compliance and regulatory risks: Collaborating across borders means dealing with different regulations on data privacy and other compliance matters, requiring a data governance framework and clear agreements to prevent legal penalties
Learn how cloud compliance helps you ensure data privacy and security.
How to improve supply chain collaboration: 5 key strategies
Follow these five supply chain collaboration strategies to take your partnerships to the next level.
1. Understand the different types of supply chain collaboration
Each type of supply chain collaboration has distinct dynamics and processes. Knowing these differences helps you pick the ones that naturally fit what your partnership wants to achieve.
Here are the most common forms and examples of supply chain collaboration.
| Types of supply chain collaboration | Definition | Examples of supply chain collaboration |
| Vertical collaboration in the supply chain | A partnership between different levels of the supply chain | Suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors joining forces to ensure timely deliveries and product quality |
| Horizontal collaboration in the supply chain | The cooperation between companies at the same level of the supply chain, including competitors | Two engineering companies sharing resources to reduce operational or logistical costs |
| Internal collaboration in the supply chain | The coordination of different teams within a company | Two engineering companies sharing resources to reduce operational or logistical costs |
| External collaboration in the supply chain | The collaboration between a company and outside stakeholders | Onboarding a new vendor or partnering with suppliers to respond faster to market changes |
2. Use verbal, visual, and written communication
Imagine how long it would take to approve a contract without real-time document collaboration or how challenging it would be to run a training session without visuals.
To prevent communication inefficiencies, incorporate these three methods into your supply chain collaboration techniques:
- Verbal communication: Prioritize verbal discussions for negotiations and resolving immediate issues to facilitate quick understanding
- Visual communication: Use visual collaboration tools to train suppliers on best practices, design workflows, and present data for performance improvement
- Written communication: Formalize agreements, facilitate collaborative task management, and maintain a clear record of shared activities
3. Centralize information for easy access
Effective supplier collaboration requires consistent data exchange, from onboarding to performance tracking. A centralized platform with cloud-based data storage provides a single source of truth for critical information, giving every partner a simple way to monitor inventory levels and order statuses.
For example, you can create customized cloud workspaces or supplier collaboration portals for strategic partnerships, enabling quick access to documents and communication on specific projects or tasks.
4. Prioritize secure supplier collaboration tools
If you need to share any kind of sensitive data with your suppliers, like strategic plans or intellectual property, secure supplier collaboration tools help prevent theft or unauthorized changes with encryption, access controls, and multi-factor authentication (MFA).
With reliable supplier collaboration platforms, you can also schedule online backups and classify sensitive files to meet certain compliance requirements. These measures also build trust and show your commitment to protecting supplier information.
5. Foster tech-driven supplier relationships
Automation and generative AI play a vital role in the future of supply chain collaboration. Gartner forecasts that 43% of enterprises will continue to digitalize and integrate innovative technologies into enterprise-wide systems, making the use of advanced platforms for faster decision-making even more important.
For a more connected supply chain collaboration, future-proof your organization with:
- Real-time tools: Supplier collaboration platforms equipped with instant communication and co-editing features help teams and suppliers work on shared files and tasks simultaneously, streamlining troubleshooting for changes in demand or unexpected delays
- Content insights: With intelligent supplier collaboration solutions, you implement responsible AI and machine learning models to analyze and gain actionable intelligence from shared content, including demand forecasts, quality control reports, and other documents
Collaborate securely with supply chain partners through Box
Harnessing the benefits of supplier collaboration is easier with Box. Our Intelligent Content Management platform offers a secure way to co-create and collaborate on files with your team or external partners, regardless of their location.
Box helps you streamline supplier projects with:
- Collaboration tools: Put everyone on the same page with document sharing, visual whiteboards, and content insights
- Secure portals: Use Box Hubs to curate resources for specific projects and suppliers
- Enterprise-grade AI: Get answers and insights from your documents with Box AI
- Intelligent content workflows: Automate processes from start to finish to scale up your collaborative efforts
- Compliance controls: Support regulatory requirements across the globe with Box Zones
Plus, you can use Box integrations to connect your content across 1,500+ applications, including communication software, productivity suites, and other tools in your tech stack. With one place to manage content, you keep information protected without hindering productivity.
Let’s connect and discuss how to make supplier collaboration more efficient with Box.
*While we maintain our steadfast commitment to offering products and services with best-in-class privacy, security, and compliance, the information provided in this blog post is not intended to constitute legal advice. We strongly encourage prospective and current customers to perform their own due diligence when assessing compliance with applicable laws.