| Of course, modern business relationships are typically more complex than simple dyads. In a business-to-business (B2B) relationship, there may be many interpersonal relationships formed between people on both sides. The CEOs may be talking about building a formalized partnership; the customer’s engineers may be talking with the supplier’s product management about product quality; the customer’s product users may be talking to the supplier’s customer service team about product training, and so on. Sometimes, when purchasing large complex business solutions a customer will build relationships with companies in the supplier’s own supply chain, so as to ensure that the right levels of product functionality, quality and innovation are built into future offerings. And to make it even more complex, one can imagine many customers dealing with many suppliers in a collaborative network of relationships. However, we will begin by focusing upon the single dyad: a customer and a supplier. |
