Ten Tips for Encouraging Supplier Innovation

Ten Tips for Encouraging Supplier Innovations

 

Nowadays, more and more organizations are reaching to their suppliers to encourage the innovation process in order to improve their own business models, services, and products that they offer the end customers. Here are some invaluable tips to help you maximize the supplier innovation potential for your business. It has become pretty much obvious that innovation is the most powerful fuel for your business engines. That’s why supplier-related innovation is both needed and welcomed more than ever.

 

• Encourage ideas and embrace innovations you can get from your suppliers. It comes without saying that your suppliers often know your business better than your own staff. Make sure you support and reward their contributions.

 

• Strength your commitment to all available supplier innovation programs. What’s even more important this commitment should come and be equally supported by the entire business structure and departments.

 

• Nurture new ideas with your suppliers. Establish and support a culture of mutual trust in these matters, so suppliers know you truly appreciate their innovation efforts.

 

• Share as much information as possible with your most innovative suppliers. There are suppliers who can significantly improve your business with their innovative contributions. Make sure you always have time for them.

 

• Make sure that you structure and maintain a precise supplier innovation workflow by letting your suppliers know what’s happening with the implementation of their ideas. There’s no better way to keep your suppliers motivated.

 

• Ensure the support of your organization’s managers for suppliers’ innovations you’re planning to either discuss or impellent.

 

• Reward your suppliers for their innovations, contributions, and suggestions. Sometimes, a simple and honest “thank you” can be more than enough.

 

• Keep the motivation levels high when it comes to your employees and their much-needed cooperation with suppliers on the implementation of new innovations.

 

• Treat your suppliers as an invaluable extension of your own business. Here is a bit of simple advice. Treat them the same way as you would like to be treated if you were to walk in their shoes.

 

• Let it be a rule rather than an exception that you expect innovative ideas from your suppliers every now and then.

 

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