Business

The airlines industry provides an interesting backdrop for a discussion of the business buying process.

Consider the major influences on business buyers found in the Boeing Supplier wesbite and then discuss Boeing's expectations of supplier.

Do you feel their policies facilitate more efficient business buying?

The changes that Boeing has undergone over the last 10 years have had a profound impact on the way it now performs its business. It has built upon its strengths and in those areas where weak, has joined forces with those more capable. Change is a continuous process, however, and by its very nature, provides opportunities for improvement. In light of this, Boeing may find opportunities of improvement in the following areas: better leveraging of its internal knowledge, increased modularity of product design, and the redefinition of its corporate boundaries.

Discuss how Boeing's relationships with their suppliers/customers is based on trust.

Faced with the challenge of effectively managing its organizational changes and industry growth simultaneously, Boeing's development of the 777 all but demanded improvements to its relationships with its customers and suppliers. Boeing recognized the strong need for customer loyalty and sought to create additional value-added services. At the same time, it moved to distribute the risk associated with its new product development and worked with its major suppliers to split the burdensome costs of their development efforts. Given these two factors and the ambitious objective of increasing the ratio of airplane parts built by outsiders from 48% to 52% over the next 5 years Boeing needed to, and continues to, strengthen these relationships. It did so by increasing the level of interaction of these two groups with the design team. By improving the information sharing and knowledge transfer outside of its corporate boundaries Boeing was able to gain efficiencies in production via increased supplier interaction and...