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5.7.4.1.1 Strategic Suppliers
Chapter 5 ■ Service Design
Suppliers that support service providers transform and support strategically the business
of delivering IT services located at the top of the competition and are called strategic
suppliers. These suppliers are normally referred to as partners, which indicates a
partnership of sorts to ensure that the supplier respects and meets the commitments
coming from his end. Considering their importance to service deliverance, it is important
to prepare some suppliers as partners and make them more than accountable for their
side of the bargain.
You might have seen companies boasting of having technology partners, media
partners, and other appropriate partners. Welcome to the new world, where achievement
comes through collaboration, and there is a dire need for partners, rather than merely
suppliers! The trend started a few years ago and will continue to flourish over the next
several years.
I worked for Atos, a French IT service provider, sometime back. The organization
has been the IT partner for the Olympics since 1989, and they are not referred to as an IT
service provider by the IOC (the company that manages Olympics) because the Olympics
events today hinge on the success of IT, unlike in past events. So, it is extremely critical
for the IOC that Atos succeeds in its promised delivery to make the Olympics events a
success. Hence the term partner is fitting, although there is no joint sponsorship of the
Olympics events.
In the case of strategic suppliers, the supplier management activities are taken
care of by a senior person and is directly overseen by the senior management. Yet, the
activities partaken come under the ambit of the supplier management process. Yes, there
might be caveats and different sets of controls for strategic suppliers, but that does not
take them outside the ambit of the process.
The management involves regular conversations, meetings, follow ups, performance
reviews, steering committee meetings, and other bicommunicational exercises. During
the interactions, it is imperative that the service strategy and design resources be a
mandatory presence more often than not.
5.7.4.1.2 Tactical Suppliers
Tactical suppliers are important but not as important as the strategic ones. They are not
referred to as partners, but rather just suppliers. They provide support in the service
provider’s tactical activities.
This can best be explained with an example. A service provider buys a bid to support
a customer on the floor. The customer is a well-established supermarket based across the
major cities in a country. So, in other words, the customer is spread out and the service
provider needs to have an IT personnel presence in every city and in every neighborhood
in which the supermarket operates. The service provider takes a tactical decision in
aligning with a supplier who is in the business of providing IT support to home users
across the country. By leveraging the reach of the supplier, the service provider is able to
broaden his scope into servicing every supermarket in the chain. The supplier therefore
is an important one, as he supports tactical deliverance of services to one or more of the
service provider’s customers.
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