Developing and Managing Business Relationships 5 credits

Modern commerce runs on relationships, not just transactions. Whether you are selling complex B2B solutions or sourcing materials across continents, your success depends on building trust, creating mutual value, and managing long-term partnerships that survive market turbulence. Companies today recognize that sustainable competitive advantage comes from the quality of their business relationships—yet most professionals learn relationship management through trial and error rather than systematic study. You will explore Scandinavian industrial marketing and resource-based perspectives to understand how firms create, capture, and sustain value in buyer–seller networks. You will work with customer value analysis and total cost of ownership, relationship portfolio strategies, key account management, complex selling, and sales force management. You will address supplier selection and development, negotiation techniques, contractual and relational governance, and risk and resilience in global supply chains. Ethics, legal compliance, and triple-bottom-line purchasing will be integrated throughout. By the end of the course, you will be able to diagnose relationship challenges, design actionable improvements, and run effective negotiations in domestic and international contexts. You will apply proven models to plan key account and supplier strategies, evaluate options on cost, risk, and impact, and justify decisions ethically and sustainably. You will be equipped to build and maintain strategic relationships that drive long-term performance.