Early in my career I was introduced to some key principles in regards to developing meaningful relationships with strategic suppliers. I was introduced to the concept that Suppliers are every bit as important as Customers, and should be treated as such. This continues to resonate through ongoing joint sales, marketing and business development initiatives that we make a point of practicing today with our partners.

7 Principles of Partnership:

1. We share the same philosophy in market, culture and business ethics;
   We envision the market the same way as our Supplier partners and we work together to position our collective products and services for future growth. Our culture towards our people, honesty & transparency and impeccable business ethics are consistent with that of our partners.
2. We trust and like one another;
   This is paramount in building a true supplier partnership. Without trust, we have nothing. If we don’t understand each other and if we don’t like each other, we can’t build trust
3. We are both leaders in our field;
   We strive to align and partner with suppliers who are proven global leaders in their respective technologies. In return we offer our partners conduits to markets and customers for which we have developed industry leading services and support over the last 4 decades.
4. We develop a level of reciprocal exclusivity;
   This does not mean we are the only service provider that our Suppliers work with. It does however mean we work closely with our partners to develop services and programs for our customers that when bundled with our suppliers’ products, bring significant value to the market that our competitors do not offer.
5. We market together, strategize together and sell together;
   We identify niche markets with our supplier partners and plan to proactively bundle our products and services to position in these markets so that we both grow our respective market shares.
6. We win and lose together;
   We partner on specific opportunities and position each other’s strengths and value. We share in success and losses. We do not position multiple suppliers for the same opportunity.
7. We are both entitled to make profit;
   We understand that profit is the cornerstone to success. Both parties must make profit to continue to lead their respective markets. We don’t expect one way pricing discounts to make our profit disproportionate to our partners’- or vice versa.

At Westcan ACS we treat Suppliers as Customers. They are not dependent on us, we are dependent on them. We’re not doing them a favour by serving them. They’re doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity. Partners are our passport to success. Without them we can’t get there.