Customer

Intro

Every in­di­vid­ual, team, and com­pany is part of a busi­ness ecosys­tem, is a par­tic­i­pant in cus­tomer-sup­plier re­la­tion­ships. We re­ceive some­thing. An input. We add to it. Hope­fully our con­tri­bu­tion is valu­able. We then pass it along.

These re­la­tion­ships typ­i­cally are in­ter­nal to the com­pany. Very few of us have di­rect ac­cess to ex­ter­nal cus­tomers or to ex­ter­nal sup­pli­ers.

But the ap­proach a na­tional cul­ture takes to busi­ness re­la­tion­ships is the same whether they are in­ter­nal or ex­ter­nal to the com­pany. And that ap­proach is based on a logic shared by both the cus­tomer and the sup­plier. For in all busi­ness re­la­tion­ships we are ei­ther cus­tomer or sup­plier.

The ques­tion is, do Amer­i­cans and Ger­mans take the same ap­proach? Does the Amer­i­can ap­proach work with Ger­mans? Does the Ger­man ap­proach work with Amer­i­cans?

If the log­ics are not the same, and if Ger­man and Amer­i­can col­leagues are not aware of the dif­fer­ences, they will dam­age crit­i­cal busi­ness re­la­tion­ships in a very short pe­riod of time.

Consult vs. Serve • Customer-Supplier Expectations • Customer-Supplier Collaboration