Value Co-Creation in Industrial Buyer-Seller Partnerships ... - Doria

6.7.5 Comments on internal issuesAt the Buyer it was said that the local the Seller people are good and responsive, but thatthey sometimes have difficulties in communicating within their own organization. Eventhough the local people and Mr SR1&2 work according to the spirit of the cooperationagreement, the rest of the organization sometimes fails to live up to it, making it impossiblefor the Buyer team to fulfill its obligations.At the Seller it was said that not everybody working in day-to-day operations in theBuyer organization have accepted the spirit of the cooperation agreement, resulting inviolations of the agreed terms. This is felt to be due to management failing incommunicating clearly the spirit and the implications of the cooperation agreementthroughout the organization.In summary it can be said that the message from both organizations was that thecounterpart did not live up to the agreement 100 % and that this mostly was due to problemsin internal communication.6.8 Summing up the status of the partnership in January 2004In January 2004 a partnership seminar between the Seller and the Buyer was organized bythe Buyer. The idea was to invite everybody who is involved in the interaction between thetwo companies. This partnership seminar was a last attempt by the founding fathers of thepartnership idea, Mr BR9 and Mr SR1&2, to make the partnership work. They still believedin their vision and did not want to give up on it, although there was resistance andsuspiciousness towards the partnership in both organizations. At the time of the firstpartnership seminar Mr BR15 from the Buyer had been appointed by Mr BR9 to take chargeof developing the partnership with the Seller. Thus there was a dedicated resource from theBuyer assigned for the job.The purpose of the first partnership seminar was to discuss how the partnership couldbe taken to the next level. The goal was to foster trust and respect, to formulate a jointvision for the partnership, and to encourage open communication and create functionalchannels of communication. The key benefits for the participants of the seminar were firstof all to solve current conflicts face-to-face, and more generally to learn to understand theidea of the partnership.At this time it was obvious that there were a number of unresolved issues between thecompanies and that both companies had failed in some ways to live up to the cooperationagreement. The Seller had communicated inadequately about technical problems and the123