Consortium benchmarking: Collaborative academic–practitioner case study research

The competition for supplier resources

“…What is missing in the literature is an empirical exploration of the different dimensions of customer attractiveness and supplier satisfaction and a test on how these multidimensional constructs relate to each other and to preferred customer status. Our study addresses these gaps thereby responding to recent calls for theoretical conceptualizations (Schiele & Krummaker, 2011;Mortensen & Arlbjørn, 2012) and empirical evidence on the relationships between these concepts . More specifically, we draw on social exchange theory to discuss the concepts of customer attractiveness and supplier satisfaction and we build hypotheses on the links between these concepts and preferred customer status.…”

Tactics at the category level of purchasing and supply management: sourcing levers, contingencies and performance

“…Rather, firms group similar purchases into sourcing categories (Cousins et al, 2008;Horn et al, 2013;Monczka et al, 2008). To achieve cost savings, each sourcing category requires a tailored set of tactics (Schiele et al, 2011). These tactical sourcing levers have an immediate practical relevance and are at the core of decision making of 'front-line' purchasing agents.…”

“…Karjalainen and van Raaij (2011) again address the functional level and limit 'volume bundling' to the purchasing function and the consolidation of demand through centralisation of purchasing activities. Yet, Schiele et al (2011) focus on the sourcing category level and state that 'volume bundling' might be limited to only one category of purchases while other categories require different tactics. These observations correspond to recent findings calling for a hierarchical approach in purchasing strategy development.…”

“…Different from the majority of other quantitative and qualitative research approaches, in a world café, practitioners are seen as co-researchers rather than objects of inquiry (Susman and Evered, 1978). Relevance was demonstrated as participants highly valued to be actively engaged into discussion and evaluation of findings (Schiele and Krummaker, 2011;Vermeulen, 2007). As participants move from table to table to exchange ideas, they can further build capabilities, gaining immediate return on the time invested into the process.…”

“…The developed list of indicators represents specific, actionable activities that may serve practitioners as a 'toolbox' or 'checklist' to plan upcoming sourcing activities and to discuss improvement potentials that have not been addressed so far. The identified cost saving approaches may be used in cross-functional lever analysis workshops that have been described as a promising, new costcutting methodology (Schiele, 2007;Schiele et al, 2011;Schuh et al, 2011). Practitioners might, for example, evaluate whether they have considered all potential tactical sourcing levers to achieve their goals or if their choice of tactics fits to the approaches taken in another sourcing category.…”