Win-win in action-a case study

The aim of this paper is to describe the actions taken to implement the use of the win-win principle in a customer-supplier relationship. The case companies, one supplier and one customer, belong to a global equipment provider's supply network. In action, science researchers become active participants in the process under study: they become change agents. In that sense we have used an action research method for generating data in this case study. An activity-based costing method was used to improve the quality of the supplier's cost information. Surprising openness was obtained as a result. The win-win implementing procedure introduced in the paper seems to give good results. All the participants are willing to continue on the chosen road: the project will be expanded to cover the rest of the products.