Communicating with Supplier Partners

One of the things that is always an issue is communication.  While having a close working relationship with your supplier partners in key strategic products or projects may be key, what is the ideal way to communicate?  Regular face to face meetings?  Conference calls? Emails? Reports?

While it impossible to predict what works for any given partnership, it is easy to predict what happens when there is a communication snafu or even lack of communication.  Personally, I favor regularly scheduled face-to-face meetings with key strategic partners, coupled with periodic email communication.  But how can we prevent those pesky “communication gaps”?  One strategy may be to focus on key deliverables – regularly communicating about progress toward goals.  Another strategy might be spending time up front in the relationship talking about the association’s key business priorities and the executive director’s expectations for the product or project.  What types of communication aids or strategies do you use to prevent the “communication gap”?