Many organizations today think about gaining market perspectives from their customers in a broad array of forums.  Customer advisory boards, customer roundtables, focus groups, voice of the customer programs and many other avenues are used to gain insight.  But one unique way to gain insight to guide an organization’s leadership team is through the eyes of the supplier – a Supply Chain Council.

Supplier meetings are pretty common.  I think for the most part, suppliers dread going in to many of these forums.  I often think of an environment where suppliers will likely be told that they need to become more efficient, they need to lower their costs, create more ROI and deliver their products more timely with higher quality.  Sounds dreaded… but Standard Register is different.

Standard Register established their Supply Chain Council late in 2009 with a different intent.  The goal and objective of the council is to help Standard Register achieve “advantage” in the market.  That could be in the form of new products, faster delivery, access to new markets, access to advanced technology, and access to advanced thinking.  The intellectual firepower executive relationships in SR’s Supply Chain Council is impressive.

Greg Greve, Standard Registers Vice President, Supply Chain states: “One of our objectives was to leverage the collective brain power of our supply chain partners.  Although we’re only a $700 million business, we have strong business relationships with at least a dozen thought leading suppliers representing both similar and different markets than SR.  Bringing these thought leaders to the table has positioned us to gain advantage in the way we think, the markets in which we participate, and the manner in which we conduct business.”

So far, the program has been an overwhelming success.  It’s aligned the suppliers with SR’s goals, objectives and priorities, and provided thought leading insight to advance the business. 
 

These are exciting times for this 98 year old company to be on the move toward a transformation that will propel Standard Register into the next century of success, and the Supply Chain Council is a great enabler.