The challenge
Searching for a measure of performance success
A large US-based healthcare product manufacturer was expanding to compete in markets beyond its borders. They knew they needed to build successful business relationships with their customers, but they had no way to understand whether they were performing better or worse than their competitors. They also sought to understand where they needed to focus as they structured their organization and developed ways of working in new trading areas and with new customers.
Advantage application
Annual syndicated performance benchmarking program
Surveys are broadcast to supplier requested retail contacts. Retailers rate suppliers across a set of strategic relationship and functional questions. In-depth interviews are conducted with program participants for unvarnished context on survey ratings and to understand best in class strategies. Insights are mined and shared with companies for action within their company and for discussion and planning with key stakeholders.
Suppliers listen to how they performed against their competition as rated by the retailers they work with. This feedback provides a performance benchmark and a multi-year trend across the business by market as well as within specific functional areas like category management and supply chain. Feedback provides a comprehensive view of performance that can be used at senior and functional levels to diagnose focus areas in the business.
The outcome
Insights correlate to business results to chart a path to success
This company found Advantage Report gave them a clear and consistent diagnostic of hot spots in business performance by market and by functional area as to where they were ranked, where they should focus and where they were good and bad. It also provided them with a structure that they could apply to their thinking from supply chain to category management to marketing capabilities as they worked with the customer.
They also noted a direct correlation between Advantage scores and business results. Thus, it became a diagnostic of how their business would perform.
A senior leader indicated that our listening program impacted the company’s business in one identified market in three distinct ways:
- Enabled dedicated annual team planning sessions to strategize around
- Provided a clear diagnostic of the markets and teams who were winning and delivering more to our customers
- Created an engagement platform with our customers for discussing the results and actioning change
