The most common mistake at a supplier day is inviting everyone. The result: a room full of people with diverging interests and a programme that feels truly relevant to no one. Conversations lead nowhere.
Effective supplier days start with segmentation. Look at three axes:
Strategic importance. Which suppliers are truly decisive for your continuity, innovation or positioning? They deserve a different conversation than an administrative supplier.
Intensity of collaboration. How often do you work together, how deep is the integration, is there room for co-creation? Suppliers you work with daily call for a different format than annual-contract partners.
Volume and duration. Large contract partners and long-standing relationships deserve recognition. But volume alone says little about strategic relevance.
Based on this segmentation, you choose who you invite. Also whether you combine plenary sessions with separate working sessions per segment. And what you do and don't share per group. Sometimes a supplier day has two tracks: a strategic session for top partners and a broader information day for the rest.
Live Impact helps set up the segmentation matrix and translate it into a programme structure that fits each group. Read more in the article organising a supplier day.