A survey of buyers during the HfS Blueprint Sessions in Chicago has revealed the biggest hurdle to improving the services industry may be the lack of trust between buyers and suppliers.
While 43% of buyers said “letting go and giving more responsibility to the provider” would be the top action to improve value and outcomes, the second most popular response was to threaten “a competitive bid to drive anxiety into the provider” – hardly a tactic to engender trust.
Furthermore, fully 50% described their current relationships as “directive,” with buyers telling service providers what to do, while only 27% described their relationships as “collaborative” or jointly strategizing and executing. Sadly 23% admitted they are “dysfunctional” with a general lack of communication and accomplishment.
Following these poll results, we canvassed attendees as well as drew from Blueprint report primary research this year to identify what can be done about the lack of trust in business-to-business relationships today. We are clearly in a more mature global, virtual, service-oriented economy that demands people connect and collaborate in new ways to reach the next level of value and establishing trust across the extended enterprise is a key aspect to engender.
