The Challenge: Our client, a supplier of automation technology and solutions, wanted to significantly improve its relationship and position with a major customer in the oil & gas industry.

Assessment: Blue Canyon used its proprietary Relationship Management Tier Toolkit methodology to perform an internal baseline assessment of the client’s current relationship with its major customer, evaluating the relationship along multiple key dimensions versus industry wide best practices. The assessment process identified specific areas and actions the client could take to potentially elevate the relationship with its customer. The internal assessment was augmented with a comprehensive set of customer interviews covering all major relationship touch points. The interviews provided direct feedback on the current state of the relationship and uncovered customer-driven suggestions for actions to strengthen and deepen the supplier-customer connection.

Strategic Solution: Based on the internal assessment and customer interview feedback, Blue Canyon was able to identify key action items: focus on integration capabilities, increase local support capabilities, focus R&D on specific customer initiatives, and show the lowest total cost of ownership for the client to focus on to elevate the relationship from a traditional supplier relationship to a preferred supplier or partnership relationship.

Results: As a result of implementing these findings, the client-customer relationship continues to improve. The two companies consider its success related and continue to function as strategic partners.