DHL calls for change from transactions to partnerships

Nearly three-quarters of businesses are lacking a formal supply chain business model centered around collaboration with outside enterprises, according to a white paper commissioned by DHL.    DHL Supply Chain, a contract logistics arm of the Deutsche Post DHL Group, on Thursday called on companies to work in a collaborative, rather than transactional manner, to meet supply chain challenges.
   The call to action came in a new white paper commissioned by DHL  to look at whether companies were engaged in partnering models. The report, “Business Collective 1.0: Partnering Reborn,” was authored by supply chain consultant Lisa Harrington.
   The white paper and a corresponding survey found that more than 70 percent of businesses are yet to truly have in place partnership models, while only 5 percent claim to have reached a fully integrated partnering model with customers. This new approach, according to the white paper, refers to a collective of organizations aligning on a shared mission and competitive strategy.
   “Leading companies are recognizing the need to do business differently,” Harrington said. “CEOs and supply chain managers are asking one of the most pressing business questions: how can we work together to win in the global marketplace? Many companies are now realizing that thanks to new technologies – combined with new management science – it is possible to identify challenges and develop collective solutions. It is outdated to adopt an inside-out approach to the world of business that is informed only by your own business’s perception and capabilities.”
   The paper notes that companies typically progress through several stages of maturity as they adopt such a partnership-based business model. Under a transactional model, companies approached business from an ‘inside-out’ perspective with a single lens. The new ‘outside-in’ approach involves partners collaborating to develop a more complete picture of challenges and solutions.
   “The least mature stage can include an outside expert reviewing operations and providing solutions to streamline it, such as extracting waste at the customer’s facility,” DHL said. “More mature stages can include multiple organizations coming together in recognition of joint capabilities to solve a problem collectively.”