Improving Channel Relationships

This study of “distributor and manufacturer working partnerships,” in which there is “mutual recognition and understanding that the success of each firm depends in part on the other firm,” attempts to identify the forces that can affect that relationship. It offers some suggestions for how manufacturer and distributor firms can actively manage their working partnerships.

Key findings
Communication and trust are core elements of the authors’ model. They suggest a joint planning process that would entail “mutually defining performance objectives for each partner, thereby establishing expectations with which outcomes can be compared; specifying the cooperative efforts each firm requires of its partner to attain its objectives; periodic communication on progress toward the performance objectives, including discussion of any changes in marketplace or production conditions that would significantly affect them; and finally, a formal retrospective review of each partner’s performance.”

“A Model of Distributor Firm and Manufacturer Firm Working Partnerships,”
James C. Anderson and James A. Narus, Journal of Marketing,
Vol. 54, January 1990, pp. 42-58

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