In recent years, increasing attention is paid to the buyer-supplier relationship and supply chain management in general. Types of buyer-supplier relationships have evolved from the old school of the 1980s, where buyers and suppliers are considered as part of a zero sum game, in a collaborationist perspective of the 1990s, who claimed that buyers and suppliers can cooperate to the benefit of both, to more network-oriented view of the 2000s, where buyers and suppliers are part of the ecosystem of the organic business. One interesting fact is that empirically, the buyer-supplier relationship exists in a remarkably diverse forms in different geographic regions and business sectors. There is not one dominant mode. This case is a brief description of the eight different real-world examples that illustrate the wide range of customer-supplier relationships. "Hide
by Michael Enright, Vincent Mak Source: University of Hong Kong, 15 pages. Publication Date: May 20, 2003. Prod. #: HKU257-PDF-ENG
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