Part III
Read Part I and Part II of our story.
In the third and final part of this story we’ll share the outcomes of the first few vendor meetings.
Three vendor/company meetings were scheduled in the evening. It was decided to have four separate meetings in order to keep the groups smaller and also because it didn’t make sense to have competing vendors in the same room. The goal of these meetings was to explore if the decisions made based on feedback (refer to Part II) were sufficient to improve relationships but also to enable for some relationship building between vendors and company employees.
The meetings were structured to include a “getting to know you activity.” Vendors were asked to talk about their expertise from the vendor perspective, but also each vendor was asked to introduce themselves from a personal perspective (hobbies, etc.). Since the vendors understood the company, each company employee was asked to share their role within the company and also to introduce themselves from a personal perspective.
A number of company executives were at this meeting and they shared the strategic goals of the company as it relates to supporting the customer and how they wanted to partner with the vendor to do. They also thanked the vendor for their work within the company and highlighted how the vendors has helped to achieve company goals. Each of the vendors had brought along an executive with them and these executives shared what was happening within their own organization as it relates to strategy and supporting the company.
The meetings were mainly focused on networking to establish relationships, but time was spent also on discussing the outcomes of the research and getting buy-in of how the vendors and the company would move forward in their relationship. Additionally, vendors agreed to meet with their main points of contact in the company on a quarterly basis to discuss upcoming projects. These meetings were scheduled for the next year.
At the end of the meetings, a brief survey of participants showed that vendors and employees found the session of value, specifically around:
- Getting to know each other on a personal as well as professional basis
- Better understanding the goals of each other’s organization and sharing how they could support those goals
- Getting agreement on how they would continue to work together more effectively
