Agility and Locks

a•gil´i•ty (n.) is the ability to move easily.

The goal of the buyer is to have high agility, a very competitive environment and the ability to be able to do business with at least two or more vendors.

The goal of the seller is to have a buyer with low agility coupled with an inability to have a competitive environment to prevent the buyer from being able to easily switch the business to another vendor.

Suppliers are taught to continually provide value added services to move as high up the value chain as possible. SMG refers to this as locking up the customer. The more locks that a supplier installs, the less agility the buyer has over time, and the more pricing power that accrues to the supplier.

SMG’s Buying Agility™ process measures a buyer’s current level of agility and then creates a buying strategy to create agility, competition, and reduced pricing.