Relationship Productivity : Adopting Joint Productivity Thinking to Build Win-Win Relationships

The article tests the assumption in the relationship marketing literature that this approach to customers enables a win-win situation, where both the supplier and the customer benefit financially. This is done by introducing a relationship productivity concept based on a joint productivity approach, where productivity management is treated as a collaborative process. The relationship parties align their resource deployment and competences, processes and behaviors in order to develop a productive business relationship which benefits both parties. A seven-step relationship productivity management process is introduced. Using empirical case data, it is demonstrated that this process functions and leads to economic enhancement of the relationship endeavour and improved productivity for both the supplier and the customer. Relationship marketing’s win-win assumption holds