VENDOR DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES

Unprecedented changes sweeping the world during the last few years hav e given rise to the need for the development and adoption of contingen cy strategies. This requires firms to have strategic flexibility in ev ery aspect of their operation. Vendor development strategies constitut e an important component in achieving this flexibility. Attempts to dr aw up an explicit conceptual link between generic business unit strate gies and generic vendor development strategies. Proposes a vendor stru cture framework with three dimensions representing vendor structure sc ope, vendor structure relationship and vendor structure focus. Uses th e framework to develop certain generic vendor development strategies. Considers the four generic strategies suggested by Porter, namely indu stry-wide cost leadership strategy, industry-wide differentiation stra tegy, segment cost leadership strategy and segment differentiation str ategy and, for each one of these, proposes appropriate vendor developm ent strategies.