Client relationship mapping

In an earlier post we talked of steps to take to check the pulse of your client relationships, and to determine how closely connected you are to your client’s strategy.

 In this post we are going to look at the actual 1:1 relationships that exist, and those that should exist.

 The purpose of this is to establish a strong cross functional relationship between your own organization and that of your client. This will bring you closer to your client and expand the network of working relationships and touch points that occur on a regular or irregular basis. We look at the current relationships in place, how strong they are, then identify the gaps, and look at how those gaps can be closed.

 If you have been working with a client in a B2B market for some time it is likely to be multi transactional, with business and personal relationships spanning both organizations.

 Some of these relationships occur by default. Almost certainly your sales and account team will have close connections with their sourcing and procurement counterparts in the client’s team. Having a strong sales/purchasing relationship will always help to drive strong commercial interactions, but as we have seen before if we focus on the transactional relationships only, we are not likely to become successful at becoming a close strategic partner to our client even if day to day business transactions continue to run.

 This is where the concept of relationship mapping comes to play.

 We start with a matrix that captures all the key actors in the client’s organization. This will span multiple functions and levels of leadership. It will always include the commercial day-to-day relationships we talked about already, other related functions and the senior leadership of the key functions up to the CEO and their senior leadership team.

 We then map this against the people working in your organization. This can include the key people in sales, technical support, R&D, sustainability, service, and other functions. It should also include your own senior leadership. This allows us to look at the strength of the existing relationships and identify the gaps. For example, in a B2B raw material market space where innovation is a differentiator, the R&D directors of both companies should have some reason or justification to get together and interact on a regular basis. If there is a sustainability agenda, then the heads of the two sustainability functions should have interaction.

 The definition of an interaction in this context does not have to mean formal. Client interactions do not have to be structured or even regular. Using the above examples when an innovation led company is looking at its strategic partners for the future, it will look to the R&D leadership for input. If the client’s R&D director has met and had dealings with the R&D leadership in your organization, there is a much greater likelihood of alignment, transparency, and support. Same approach works for the CEO and their senior executives. It would not be expected that your CEO has regular contact with the CEO of your client, and some organizations may choose to discourage such interaction with a supplier. If the senior leadership have met each other at some time, whether socially or formally, the ability for them to communicate in the future for, say, a new strategy requiring mutual investment of resources is much improved.

 We should point out that not all relationships are constructive, and it is important to recognize that even with the best intentions there may be neutral or negative relationships between organizations. These need to be addressed, either by finding a suitable environment or topic for those individuals to find a better way forward together, or if not then allows a proactive plan to divert the actors to different contacts.

 At the end of this process, you are provided with a client relationship mapping tool that captures all relevant existing connections, assess how strong those relationships are and if needed, any course correction proposals. The same map will also identify those missing relationships that are considered valuable. Often these are cross functional. With the mapping process will also be proposals on how specific individuals can be brought together in a suitable environment or topic of discussion.

 Relationship mapping is a valuable part of a strong client to supplier bond, the importance of ensuring it is complete and is managed should not be overlooked.  Once established, the map is used to extend and strengthen the relationships between the two organizations. Some of those initiatives are not short term, which is perfectly fine in a long term B2B relationship model.

Julian Cass

January 2023

This blog post represents thoughts based upon our experience and observations. It is written to be thought provoking and not intended to be acted upon directly. If you would like to discuss your specific scenario or would like to know more about how we can help with developing a contact map for your key clients contact us here