5. Buyer-Supplier Relationships: Role of Collaboration, Sustainability, and Technology

The relationship between buyers and suppliers is crucial for any organization that is willing to be flexible and adapts to these changing times. Flexibility becomes hard to attain if the buyer-supplier relationships (BSR) are restricted; on the other hand, it is risky to adopt a laissez-faire mentality because of opportunism. The purpose of this chapter is to yield a framework for understanding the evolution of buyer-supplier relationships in supply chain management. The methodology is based on researching case examples with agreements and collaborative processes, trust, and information sharing. The goal is to contrast the past and the present changes in the buyer-supplier relationships for several companies and then determine the benefits or drawbacks of those relationships. The questions that will be addressed in this chapter are as follows: What are the positive and negative aspects of the collaborative process of buyer-supplier relationships? How do the triple P’s (people, planet, profit) factor into these relationships? How sustainability affects the buyer-supplier relationship over the years? How information technology helps increase transparency and trust in buyer-supplier relationships?