“A nice little jolly.”
If you've ever travelled for a conference, trade show or supplier event, you've probably heard some version of it.
And I get it.
Flight.
Hotel.
Dinner.
Drinks.
A couple of days walking around an exhibition hall talking to people.
Doesn't sound too bad.
And to be clear, I enjoy them.
I've just returned from an industry expo and I'm already packing for another work trip.
But something from the last few days has been playing on my mind.
Because these trips have reminded me of something I've seen throughout my career.
Business changes when you've met the person on the other side of it.
We can do an extraordinary amount without ever meeting each other now.
Teams.
Zoom.
Email.
LinkedIn.
Supplier portals.
Online meetings.
I've worked with people for years who I've never actually met.
And most of the time, it works.
But I still think something changes when you sit opposite somebody.
You talk differently.
The conversation wanders.
You ask questions you probably wouldn't put into an email.
They tell you things they might not have thought important enough to put into a presentation.
You learn about their business.
They learn about yours.
And somewhere amongst all of that, you stop being two email addresses exchanging requests.
You become people.
That sounds incredibly simple.
But I think it matters.
I've spent a lot of my career working with suppliers.
Some relationships have lasted years.
Others have been incredibly transactional.
And I've become increasingly convinced that a good supplier relationship has value that is very difficult to put on a scorecard.
Price matters.
Of course it does.
Quality matters.
Delivery performance matters.
Lead time matters.
Compliance matters.
Capability matters.
All of those things should be measured.
But there's another question that becomes particularly interesting when something goes wrong.
Who picks up the phone?
Because supply chains don't behave themselves forever.
Eventually something happens.
A delivery slips.
Demand changes.
A customer needs something unexpectedly.
Capacity becomes tight.
A product becomes difficult to source.
Something needs expediting.
You need information quickly.
Or perhaps you simply need somebody to tell you what's actually happening.
That's when the relationship starts to look slightly different.
You're no longer Supplier A and Customer B communicating through an inbox.
You're calling someone you know.
They know you.
They understand your business.
Hopefully they know that when you say something genuinely matters, it probably does.
And if there is something they can do to help, perhaps they're a little more inclined to try.
Not because the contract says so.
Because there's a relationship.
That's an uncomfortable thing to talk about in Procurement sometimes.
Because we quite rightly build structures around supplier decisions.
Commercial evaluations.
Competitive tenders.
Contracts.
Performance measures.
Quality requirements.
Governance.
We need them.
A good relationship cannot become an excuse for poor supplier performance.
It shouldn't justify a bad price.
It shouldn't override Quality.
It shouldn't bypass compliance.
And:
“I really like them.”
is not a sourcing strategy.
But I think we sometimes go too far the other way and pretend relationships have no value because that value is difficult to quantify.
I'm not convinced that's true either.
One thing I've noticed at industry events is just how interconnected markets can be.
People know each other.
People move companies.
Someone you met several years ago appears somewhere completely different.
A supplier introduces you to somebody else.
A conversation over coffee leads to another conversation.
You hear about something you didn't know existed.
You understand what's happening in a market slightly differently because you've spoken to the people actually operating inside it.
And occasionally somebody says:
“You should speak to…”
Those words can be incredibly useful in supply chain.
Because suddenly your network has become an extension of what you know.
I don't think I appreciated that enough earlier in my career.
Back then, I probably thought about supplier management much more through the work immediately in front of me.
The requirement.
The purchase order.
The price.
The delivery.
The problem that needed solving.
Get the job done.
Move on.
Relationships existed, of course.
But I'm not sure I understood them as part of the supply chain itself.
I do now.
Because after enough years doing this, you realise that some of the most useful conversations happen before you know why they're going to be useful.
That's the strange thing about building a network.
You don't know which relationship you'll need.
You don't even know whether you'll ever need it.
And perhaps that's the point.
It's a little like resilience.
If you wait until your only supplier fails before looking for another one, you've started building resilience rather late.
Relationships can work the same way.
The worst time to introduce yourself to somebody is sometimes the moment you desperately need something from them.
Compare:
“Hello. We've never met. I need a huge favour.”
with:
“Hi. We spoke a few months ago. I've got a problem and wondered whether you might be able to help.”
Same problem.
Very different conversation.
But I think there's another side to this which is perhaps even more valuable than getting somebody to help.
Relationships improve information.
A supplier scorecard can tell me what happened.
A forecast can tell me what we think will happen.
A contract can tell me what somebody has agreed to do.
But a conversation can tell me what somebody is worried about.
Or where they're seeing pressure.
Or what customers are asking them for.
Or where capacity might become constrained.
Or what's changing in their market.
Not every conversation produces some incredible piece of intelligence.
Most don't.
Sometimes coffee really is just coffee.
But occasionally you hear something that changes the way you think about a decision.
And that's valuable.
There's also trust.
Probably one of the most overused words in business.
But in supply chain, I think it has a very practical meaning.
Can I tell you there's a problem before I have the complete answer?
Can you tell me something is going wrong before it appears in the KPI?
Can we have a difficult conversation without immediately becoming defensive?
Can I challenge your price?
Can you challenge my forecast?
Can either of us say:
“This isn't working.”
without damaging the relationship?
For me, that's a much better test of a supplier relationship than whether everybody gets along at dinner.
Because good relationships aren't about avoiding difficult conversations.
They make difficult conversations possible.
And maybe that's why meeting somebody face to face still matters.
It's difficult to measure what changes.
There isn't necessarily a KPI before the meeting and another afterwards.
You don't shake someone's hand and suddenly become a strategic partner.
Relationships don't work like that.
But you've created context.
The next email is from somebody you've met.
The next phone call has a little history behind it.
The next difficult conversation starts from somewhere slightly different.
And over time, those small things accumulate.
So yes.
I've just spent a few days away at an industry event.
There were meetings.
Conversations.
Introductions.
Dinner.
Probably too much coffee.
And now I'm packing again.
Another trip.
Another room full of people.
Another “jolly”, perhaps.
And yes, I'm looking forward to it.
But I'm also going to listen.
Ask questions.
Meet people.
Reconnect with people I already know.
And probably have conversations that don't have an obvious purpose yet.
Some of those relationships may never lead anywhere.
Some might.
One of them might become incredibly important one day.
I just don't know which one yet.
And perhaps that's the point.
Because when that difficult day eventually arrives, the most valuable thing in your supply chain might not be another dashboard.
It might simply be knowing:
Who picks up the phone?
Theme
Relationships
Signal
Relationships don't replace good supply chain management. They make it more capable.
Reflection
Modern supply chains run on data, systems, contracts, processes and performance measures.
They also run on people.
Meeting someone doesn't guarantee better service, a better price or preferential treatment. Nor should relationships override good commercial judgement, Quality or governance.
But relationships create context, improve information and make difficult conversations easier.
Their value can be almost invisible when everything is working.
Sometimes you only discover what they're worth when it isn't.
Question
Who would pick up the phone for you if you needed them tomorrow?
The Demand Signal
Lessons from the front line of supply chain.