Using Interviews
The next step in supply chain analysis is to gather more in-depth information from stakeholders through interviews. Because interviews are relatively time-consuming, it would be unreasonable to interview every stakeholder about each supply chain activity. The surveys allowed respondents to indicate the relative importance of different activities in the supply chain, as well as to highlight previously unexplored topics. These results can therefore be used to shape the questionnaire for interviews, to delve deeper into the most significant areas and to add more detail where results may be conflicting or unclear.
Interviews use exploratory, open-ended questions to add detail and context to the supply chain framework. Before the interview, the researcher should prepare a list of potential questions. These should flow naturally from preliminary background work and analyses. By this point in the analysis, there are survey data and maybe some quantitative data to provide some information on the supply chain. It is important to supplement this with stakeholder interviews because interviews can help fill gaps in understanding the supply chain, elicit concerns over its implementation, and point to recommendations that might improve its functioning. Additionally, stakeholder interviews can help build buy-in and ownership of the project as stakeholders see the clear importance of their expert supply chain knowledge.
If the data collected from these interviews might be published as generalizable research, a protocol might be prepared for Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval. Human subjects research requires such review. If the risks are minimal, an IRB may offer a research exemption for such a protocol.
Strategic Issues in Interviews
There are logistical as well as conceptual considerations in developing a stakeholder interview approach. On logistics, you must determine who, what, how and when for these interviews.
Who: Stakeholder interviews are most informative when they include a variety of perspectives. Partners from across the supply chain should be asked to participate in this activity. It may also be helpful to speak with significant stakeholders outside the target supply chain—those with complementary or parallel supply chains, for example—because their difference in perspective may provide valuable information.
What: Each stakeholder should be approached with a defined list of questions for the interview. Questions should be:
- Open-ended: i.e. they should not match to one-word answers like “yes” or “no;” words like “Why” or “How” or “Tell me more about” may be useful in framing open-ended questions. It may help to add prompts to your question, in case the respondent does not touch on an important point in their answer. For example, a respondent might answer the question “Tell me about the monitoring system for on-time delivery” without mentioning who collects the data, so you might want to explicitly prompt for these details.
- Neutral and non-leading: they should not prompt the respondents toward a particular answer.
- Non-double-barreled: they should focus on one thing at a time (for example, a question should be “How do you track your performance on product delivery,” not “How do you track your performance on product delivery, and why was this system originally developed?”)
How: If possible, it is preferable to conduct stakeholder interviews in-person. This allows you to gain a rapport with the respondent and also to enrich your information with non-verbal cues. There may be logistical barriers to in-person meetings, however, and in this case, telephone interviews will be adequate.
When: It will be important to conduct interviews throughout the supply chain analysis project, as new issues come to light and more depth is required for certain topics. But the first round of interviews should be conducted early in the process. Partners will have recently completed the survey so they will be primed for further questions on the supply chain. Additionally, speaking directly to stakeholders during the beginning project stages helps ensure that their expert knowledge is taken into account early. This may help the respondents feel more invested in the project and it will provide insights that will help guide the project forward.
The conceptual considerations in designing an interview approach involve choices in content and structure for each question and for the complete protocol. Different respondents will likely require different lists of questions, so the interview protocols should anticipate this. Since supply chain partners are very busy, you should assume that you’ll have limited time for the interview. It will be important to pace the questions and to leave ample time for their responses.