Did you ever walk into a direct material supplier’s headquarters and see the “wall of brands”? Guaranteed that it’s there somewhere. A glass case or open shelves which contain samples of the goods in which their products are components. It doesn’t matter if it’s a flavor company highlighting the beverages using their ingredients, or a box company profiling the brands that use their packages. Material companies are proud of their clients, proud to promote and to use the brands to which they contribute. 

These firms invest significantly in Research and Development efforts to develop new products that are aligned with corporate strategy. R&D direction is based on a lot of components, but the overriding goal is to create products and product enhancements that have a market.

Now think about the power of collaboration.   All that you’ve read about the benefits of seeking input and using collaboration to solve business problems.

See where this is heading? The perfect way to help your firm in the product development process is to figure out how to harness the brainpower that’s sitting out at your suppliers. They’ve made the investment. They have far more expertise in their specialty than you do - so bring suppliers into the process and challenge them to direct some of their specialists to your business.

If the brand you support is a household name, the supplier community is likely falling all over themselves to support you.  But what if you’re not? Or if you are a relatively small client?

In that case, you lay the groundwork over time. Raise the profile of your company. Volunteer to speak at the supplier’s internal meetings. Visit their sites, get to know their executive teams. Don’t be put off by levels if you are an individual contributor and they are senior executives. Expose them to more information about your company – bring out your marketing people. Share statistics on product complaints and see if they can suggest modifications that will reduce them. Share the strategic plan and agree on the resource commitment they will make to support it. 

Here’s an example: A beverage company ran an ad for a citrus flavored product that showed a bottle being twisted with lemons and limes popping out. People started asking for the beverage in the twisted bottle. But that was just in the visual – there was no real twisted bottle. And the world at large perceived that a bottle like that would be too expensive to make or too delicate to run on a high speed filling line. Enter the Procurement team, who upon hearing the story looked at thirteen container manufacturers across the globe. Twelve said no, one figured it out. The company gained a unique package and the supplier gained substantial new volume as the product’s sales grew in the ensuing years.

There are many ways to harness this extra brainpower. Take it up a notch by creating “R&D Expanded Teams” that include non-competing suppliers. Or create some competition by developing a new product brief and asking suppliers to compete with innovations for the business. Maybe a look at patent filings should be part of the supplier selection process – with you searching for suppliers who have a track record of innovation. 

This is a win-win for both you and the suppliers. What better way to utilize their resources than to directly support a project that they already know there is a customer for? Wouldn’t your company be thrilled to know that a new product will have an instant client? It’s the same for your direct material suppliers. 

Now, this isn’t meant to be a free pass to the supplier community. You need to have a cost structure in place and an agreement on the pricing mechanism so you don’t get too far down the road with an idea that proves to be too costly. You have to think through the commitments your company is willing to make and what happens if everyone is wrong and the new product is a bust. But by stepping outside of your own firm and getting a broader band of experts to tackle the problems, the odds are higher that it will be a success.