Using cross-functional, cross-firm teams to co-create value: The role of financial measures

Increasingly, the involvement of representatives from all major business functions in cross-functional, crossfirmteams is being viewed as a means to develop and maintain profitable business-to-business relationships.However, if the measurements of the value co-created in these relationships with customers and suppliers donot incorporate the financial outcomes of joint cross-functional initiatives, managers can be led to makedecisions that jeopardize the long-term profitability of the two firms. In this paper, the authors explore thedifferences in value co-creation when a company is linked to key customers and key suppliers through crossfunctionalteams and when it is not. Using a case study approach, the authors measured value co-creation infinancial terms and describe how managers changed their behaviors toward customers and suppliers whenthey were able to compare the value that was being co-created in each relationship. In each pair ofrelationships, one involved cross-functional teams and the other did not. The results indicate that crossfunctional,cross-firm involvement leads to increased value co-creation. The research suggests that marketingscholars and managers should emphasize the use of cross-functional teams that involve all major functions tomanage relationships with key customers, and should incorporate financial measures in the evaluation ofrelationship performance

Issues in Supply Chain Management: Progress and potential

In a 2000 article in Industrial Marketing Management, “Issues in Supply Chain Management,” Lambert and Cooper presented a framework for Supply Chain Management (SCM) as well as issues related to how it should be implemented and directions for future research. The framework was comprised of eight cross-functional, cross-firm business processes that could be used as a new way to manage relationships with suppliers and customers. It was based on research conducted by a team of academic researchers working with a group of executives from non-competing firms that had been meeting regularly since 1992 with the objective of improving SCM theory and practice. The research has continued for the past 16 years and now covers a total of 25 years. In this paper, we review the progress that has been made in the development and implementation of the proposed SCM framework since 2000 and identify opportunities for further research