Attraction in industrial relationships: the strategic relevance of customer attractiveness to improve supply chain performance

摘要

Customer attractiveness is collecting increasing attention from managers and scholars. Being an attractive customer is in fact a requisite to obtain best efforts from suppliers. This article investigates, on the one hand, why customer attractiveness is relevant for supply chain management, and what are the effects on innovation and cost performance ensured by suppliers; on the other hand, antecedents of customer attractiveness are considered, as the literature is lacking indications about strategies to achieve attractiveness. To this end the study exploits data as part of an international survey on purchasing strategies, practices and performance conducted across ten countries. Results confirm that customer attractiveness positively affects both innovation and cost performance ensured by suppliers. Moreover, several direct and indirect antecedents of customer attractiveness are identified, including characteristics of the buying firm's procurement department, purchasing category characteristics, and supply chain relationship characteristics.