Business Relations: Definition and Types of Relationships

What Is Business Relations?

Business relations are the connections that exist between all entities that engage in commerce. That includes the relationships between various stakeholders in any business network, such as those between employers and employees, employers and business partners, and all of the companies a business associates with.

How Business Relations Work

A company's business relations may include a long list of customers, vendors, sales leads, potential customers, banks, stockbrokers, the media, and service providers. Business relations can also involve municipal, state, and federal governmental agencies. Essentially, business relations are all of the individuals and entities with which a business is connected or expects to have a connection, whether internal or external.

Businesses depend on the development and maintenance of vital relations with employees, business partners, suppliers, customers—any person or entity that is involved in the business process. Companies that intentionally cultivate and maintain connections may be more successful than those that ignore these connections. Strong business relations can promote customer awareness, customer retention, and collaboration between businesses in the supply chain.

Benefits of Business Relations

Hallmarks of good business relations include trust, loyalty, and communication. The success of long-term business relations is dependent upon trust, as it can foster employee satisfaction, co-operation, motivation, and innovation. Similarly, loyalty helps companies form strong and lasting relationships with employees, who return that loyalty by providing high-quality services.

That, in turn, can translate to high customer satisfaction and better sales because customers tend to pay more for products or services when they hold a company in high regard. Inherent to trust and loyalty are good communication, which is essential to managing and optimizing internal and external business relations.

Establishing good communications protocols in the early stages of a company can facilitate and improve planning, projects, and policymaking. From a financial standpoint, business relations can often determine the success or failure of a company. Strong business relations create a competitive advantage. Weak relations lead to detrimental outcomes, including unhappy employees, dissatisfied customers, negative reputations, and limited growth.

Special Considerations

Many companies use a number of strategies to ensure strong business relations are fostered and appropriately maintained. Relations may be established through a number of means including social media, emails, phone calls, and face-to-face meetings. Relations can similarly be maintained through frequent contact by phone, email, in person, and social media.

Multiple modes of contact tend to translate to stronger business relations, though face-to-face contact is typically the most effective method. More contact generally equals stronger business relations and helps build trust in the company.