Selling More To Upstream and Downstream Supply Chain Partners

It is common to see companies supplying to both upstream and downstream supply chain partners.

For your bigger customers, it is worth mapping out what kinds of products upstream and downstream partners along a supply chain are taking from you, especially for those customers are serving end customer group.

The very least you can get out of this mapping is you will know what partners nearer to end customers are cooking themselves and not taking from upstream suppliers, and who are buying products just to build on or customize products developed by upstream suppliers.

For supply chain partners developing end products by themselves and not taking from suppliers, you can then run it by your bill of materials (BOM) receipe database to suggest what new products that they can develop. In that way, you can broaden the product range ordered from your company.

For supply chain partners customizing/finishing up on earlier partners' products, you can again run your BOM receipe database to look at what products can be customized nearer to end customers to sell to upstream and downstream supply chain partners. Especially BOM receipes that involves minimal processing and are fast.

Both this strategies help to broaden the SKUs and increase its volume for your customers. It also deepens the relationship between you and your customers along the supply chain.

To enable this, one will have to build up their BOM receipes and link it to their SKUs. It can be done industry knowledge and by trawling the Internet.