Value determines strength of relationships

ACTE’S 2007 Asia-Pacific Education Conference, recently held in Singapore, urged corporate buyers and suppliers to build thought frameworks that create opportunities to deliver value for each other’s business travel goals. Although current demand and supply pressures in the region may tip the scales in favour of one party, it remains cyclical in nature and an unreliable basis to form long-lasting relationships. The conference theme, Creating Value-Based Relationships was evident in all parts of the programme with presenters demonstrating how it could be achieved beginning with examples of situations where value was found wanting, where suppliers had risen to the occasion, winning loyalty and trust, and ways to identify new forms of value for the future.Corporate buyers, represented by travel specialists, procurement heads and finance executives, were also called to review current methods of forming paradigms of value to provide for improved gauges of planned and delivered value.Value cannot satisfactorily be answered by laying value-adds over an uneasy relationship. At best ,it presumes that the original offer already meets the mutual needs of the contracting parties and that the former would serve to strengthen the relationship or worse, it ignores signs that the existing relationship would degenerate into a negative experience. The agonising reality is that valueadds used in isolation of a proper evaluation of value can entrench companies in a relationship that is already devoid of true value-delivery; broken from the outset if you will, delivering poor outcomes for both parties. One remedy requires the organisations in question to re-evaluate their respective goals against the potential value these can deliver to their stakeholders. It has been said that knowledge of self is the precursor of wise decisions made concerning another. Value-creation begins with self-analysis and expands opportunities to develop more resilient and honest buyer/supplier relationships.To facilitate this process of selfanalysis, buyers and suppliers met in their respective groups where they discussed a series of questions ranging from a review of performance metrics for various product categories to discussing which business functions should assist in defining such metrics and the rationale for their choices.The idea that value-based relationships are paramount cannot be truer than in Asia-Pacific where it is accepted that until trust is established even companies of sound repute may have to exercise great patience. Culture flavours the manner in which business is conducted and many subscribe to subtle indicators of value that can be a tricky affair to read. However, local knowledge and self-analysis can illuminate what constitutes value and that becomes the bedrock of a relationship.The ACTE Asia-Pacific Education Conference’s diverse representation of the region’s business travel executives made it the ideal environment for this to happen. The conference was attended by over 400 delegates from over 30 markets coming from 22 countries and with significant increases in attendance from the Chinese and Indian markets.