To achieve sustainable growth, best-in-class companies work with their channel partners to periodically review end customer expectations. By understanding how end customers receive value from their supply chains and by clearly defining the end customers’ expectations, a supplier is in a position to ask and to begin to answer important questions about the value chain. By combining this customer chain framework with an understanding of the value chain, it is possible to have a clear discussion with existing channel partners about services that are required, how they are to be provided, and by whom. This framework provides an essential tool for defining what services are needed and who will provide them in the future, and provide the basis of a thoughtful, progressive discussion between a supplier and its channel partners on what will be needed to be successful with the end customer in the future.