Our Strategic Business Partner workshops for supply management professionals are tailored to suit client requirements.

Feedback from Supply Management Workshop Participants

“Very practical, very useful, very real world!”
“Overall I feel empowered and inspired to better approach business partners. In just a short period of time, my peers and I have already brainstormed on areas of opportunities that are in addition to the those we committed to during the session.”
“This workshop helped me to be more strategic and work better with my business partners.”

In our supply management workshops, participants apply proven practices and tools to produce effective internal client relationships and create a personal action plan to support successful implementation of these practices and tools on the job. The workshop is weighted toward hands-on and practical activities. Approximately 60% of the workshop is filled with applied learning and interaction. The workshop content is based on nearly three decades of research.

Exemplary Performance’s certified facilitators have a unique background that integrates supply management, facilitation, and collaboration.

Sample Objectives:

Lay the interpersonal foundations for partnership with your internal clients by:

• Adopting the mental model used by successful supply managers who serve as strategic business partners with the internal clients they serve
• Applying a toolset to develop and deepen client relationships
• Conducting a proactive business discussion with actual clients following a discussion guide
• Practicing the technique of reframing client requests to shift the conversation from the solution requested to the desired results

Sample Workshop Modules

Introduction and Core Concepts
Distinguishing between sustained and project clients
Distinguishing among transactional, tactical and strategic supply management and diagnosing personal and team approach
Thinking like a strategic business partner: understanding and applying the mental model used by successful procurement consultants
The Should-Is-Cause framework for alignment of supply strategies with business strategies

Building Client Partnerships
Exploring partnership and power and assessing personal influence

• Business Acumen
• Performance

Knowing your clients, their needs and goals, and approaching them as individuals
Executing client relationships by building access credibility and trust
Forming client relationship strategies and plans
Overcoming Barriers to Becoming a Strategic business partner

Identifying internal client and stakeholder mindset and building logical connections
Using Should-Is-Cause logic
Developing a questioning strategy and crafting powerful questions

Engaging in Proactive Business Discussions with Clients
Criteria required to approach an opportunity strategically
Techniques for operating more proactively
Distinguishing among goals and strategies and why that’s important
Preparing for and conducting a proactive discussion with an internal client

Managing client requests for supply solutions with reframing techniques so the client considers the big picture and more options are explored
Planning and managing reframing discussions
Analyzing a demonstration reframing conversation
Developing a meeting plan and starter questions for reframing conversations with internal clients
Executing a reframing conversation successfully through a practice conversation

Using Data to Drive Insight

• What data can and can’t do
• Sources of data
• Determining relevance
• Formats and content

Developing Supply Strategies With Hypothesis Generation
The value of hypotheses in generating supply strategies
Techniques in hypothesis generation
Engaging stakeholders in hypothesis generation and testing and strategy development