________companies rely on a variety of supplier relationships to provide services on demand. Suppliers may provide a variety of services that include doing the payroll, hiring personnel, designing products, providing consulting services, manufacturing components, conducting test, or distributing products. The relationships may be short-term or long-term and may include true partners, or simply able suppliers. Whatever the formal relationship, the result can be exceptionally lean performance . The advantages of virtual companies include specialized management expertise, low capital investment, flexibility, and speed. The result is efficiency.