Unlocking The Power Of Strategic Partnership

Stephen Harrington is the chief supply chain officer for Delaware North, one of the world’s largest privately owned-and-operated hospitality and entertainment companies, and a leader in food service management. Harrington leads Delaware North’s $1 billion annual procurement program and the company’s Design & Construction, Culinary, Retail, and Sustainability divisions. He oversees Delaware North’s centralized sourcing and procurement efforts, working with subsidiaries and operating units across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand to maximize value from supplier partnerships.

At Delaware North, our team members are dedicated to creating exceptional experiences, services and products in the places where we operate around the globe – in sports stadiums, entertainment complexes, national and state parks, major travel hubs, casinos, resorts, and more. Our company has had its share of changes and challenges during its more than a century of operation. Yet, our commitment to creating special guest experiences and forging unrivaled partnerships with our clients, suppliers, and other stakeholders has remained constant.

We do not view supplier relationships through the lens of friendship or profit – though we’re always hoping they’ll lead to both. Instead, we prioritize these relationships based on the mutual value created through open and transparent communication, aligned goals, joint accountability, and continuous improvement, among other capabilities and attributes. In addition to maintaining our partnerships, we regularly convene in person with our most valued partners to foster greater relationship-building, collaboration, innovation, and information sharing.

Delaware North works with an optimized mix of national, regional, and local suppliers, distributors, and wholesalers while continuously driving for increased supplier diversity to sustain operations on three continents and serve over half a billion guests annually. Fostering strategic relationships with supplier partners is critical to our business operations and delivering on our promises to our clients and our communities.

Delaware North’s track record of delighting our guests is a central reason why we have longstanding relationships serving as a hospitality partner to Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Football League, NASA, some of the world’s largest airports, and the U.S. National Park Service. We are proud to have served more than 20 of our current clients for nearly a quarter century – some even for 50 to 90-plus years. The length of these relationships underscores our commitment to unrivaled partnership and the prioritization of mutual value.

The pandemic drastically affected the hospitality and entertainment industries – Delaware North’s procurement and supply chain teams were tasked with finding solutions for complex issues and re-examining what strategic sourcing, effective management, and supplier relationships mean for our company.

With input from team members, company leaders, and supplier partners, we created a framework for sourcing and procurement partners to become true strategic partners. We developed five key capabilities for these relationships: Alignment, Accountability, Trust, and Debate and Resolve.

"Quality professionals cannot simply draw up procedures, create strategies that are complicated to understand, and disseminate them without the proper deployment and frequent monitoring of activities"

In this strategic partnership model, Delaware North and our partners share resources, knowledge, and expertise to create products, experiences, and services that are more valuable to our clients and guests than we could offer alone.

Alignment: Before engaging in a strategic partnership with a supplier, you must ensure your goals, values, and actions are in sync. Everyone involved in the relationship should understand what our organization and supplier “wins.”

Accountability: Once you have aligned your goals, accountability is the capability that defines how we will achieve these mutual objectives through our values, decisions, and actions – that ultimately drive even stronger relationships and performance.

Trust: Alignment and accountability are the building blocks for mutual trust and confidence in strategic partnerships. Trust is also related to order accuracy, quality, cost, and on-time delivery from our suppliers, which are essential to meeting the needs of our operations and guests.

Debate and Resolve: Trust creates a safe and open environment for debate and resolve, which we view as opportunities for candid communication and transparency as well as new solutions to achieve shared goals.

After defining these key capabilities for our sourcing and procurement strategy, we asked ourselves how to leverage these relationships to form even stronger strategic partnerships. We devised five drivers of mutual value – Insights, Efficiency, Quality, Continuous Improvement, and Innovation.

To future-proof our business and remain competitive, Delaware North relies on partners that seek greater efficiency without sacrificing quality – a key metric for maintaining Delaware North’s reputation with key stakeholders (our clients and guests). Open communication and continuous feedback loops between our team members and supplier partners enable new solutions and growth. Leveraging data from our operations, partners, and industry research into actionable insights to better understand our clients and guests as well as innovate our products and services.

One of Delaware North’s core beliefs has always been to work with suppliers and partners with shared interests, values, and goals to create mutual value. We measure value not only through reduced costs and increased revenue but through new opportunities, improved efficiency, and information sharing, which must trickle down to improve the client and guest experience. Exceptional products, experiences, and services will capture our clients and delight our guests – but forming strategic partnerships will enable us to exceed their expectations.