Innovation in the supply chain is helping top companies around the world decrease lead times, minimize risk, cut costs and drive growth. To create this type of supply chain innovation in an era of rapidly changing markets, geographic shifts and expanding capabilities brought on by new technologies, successful businesses are increasingly turning to collaboration with other industry members – and sometimes even with competitors.

Below, find five ways businesses are pooling resources in order to drive supply chain innovation.

The classic yet beautifully designed Rolodex was good enough for as long as it worked. But once the world became one big opportunity hub, the big black knobs used in the rotary file simply would not have been able to hold the number of cards needed to flip through, without the owner not being negatively impacted by missed business contacts.

And even then, as Google became the go-to place to look for virtually everything, searches continued to be burdensome and time-consuming.

Collaboration is at the heart of every business success. Long before we start selling we engage with a range of partners, including manufacturers, logistic companies, import and export agents, lenders and investors. Indeed, just about every aspect of a business is in some way dependent on partnering on opportunities.

Continuous innovation is a major challenge faced by business executives today. As customer needs grow more diverse in the face of a globalizing economy, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to innovate and meet all of their customers’ needs on their own. Thankfully business leaders are finding a strategic partnership to be a meaningful way to meet customer demands.

Powerlinx is constantly striving to be the world’s most advanced business matching platform and an invaluable resource to business development teams. 75% of CEOs say strategic partnerships are essential to their growth, but more than half report trouble finding and connecting with partners. The fact is, companies are missing out on new strategic partners because they lack the resources and networks of larger firms and we don’t believe that’s right. There are many ways to use the Powerlinx platform to maximize your value and growth – here are a few places to start:

Looking beyond what you know and diversifying into a new product area or region can be daunting. Finding business partners to aid you on this journey could mean the difference between success and failure. 

When we think of B2B business interactions, they usually consist of a one-way street type of relationship. At the very best-case scenario, it involves a business making a commercial transaction with another.

But the need for more business collaboration, amid rising pressures to deliver high quality services/products on a timely manner paved the road to a more comprehensive way of doing business, namely the fastest, most efficient of them all.

Today’s modern supply chains are not linear, but dynamic and multi-directional – and the digital solutions currently available to supply chain professionals only enhance that fact. The ability to do business overseas via virtual, instantaneous communications has allowed companies over the past few decades to increasingly outsource their production and distribution, leading to lower production costs and higher revenues, all while creating a globalized economy that is more vast and incredibly intricate than the lay person could imagine.

Unlocking the full value of two businesses partnering on an opportunity relies mainly on three short, simple and clear principles, which need to be present in order to drive that opportunity towards success, leveraging from the first Business Meets Business (BmB) platform.

The year 2020 posed a tremendous challenge for humanity. More specifically, it took a major toll in every business around the world no matter the size, as the impact of the Covid-19 crisis thoroughly affected both supply-side and demand-side of the world economy. According to a McKinsey report, roughly 70% of interviewed European SMEs stated that their revenues had declined as a result of the pandemic.

In this unprecedented context of a rampant need for virtual presence coupled with intense globalization and intertwinement, hyper connectivity took the center stage. Surprisingly, on a global scale, it managed to stand up to the challenge of empty offices, remote working modality and a plethora of lockdown and social distancing measures which can now be seen as the so-called “new normal”. Nevertheless, it is still true today, as it will henceforth: A hyper connected world facilitates engagement in business no matter the traveling distance, the different languages nor the size of firms and deals.