Supplier convergence in the retail industry is often described as the creation and growth of, literally, "one-stop shopping" (Slywotzky et al. 1999), epitomized by retail giants such as Wal-Mart, whose outlets offer a wide range of products in an attempt to make competing specialty stores obsolete.
Essentially, each section in large department stores, such as hardware, electronics, and clothing, consequently aims to replace competing businesses specializing in just one of those areas.
Mega-search sites such as Google and Yahoo have expanded from their humble beginnings as search engines to comprehensive information portals offering news, weather forecasts, and financial services.
"Upgrade your delivery of the lower value products" Supplier convergence, when properly executed, can provide benefits to both companies and customers.
The 2004 Microsoft paper by Trowbridge et al. singles out mergers and "bundling" as a particularly positive aspect of supplier convergence.
For example, Belgian telecom company Belgacom decided in the late 1990s to combine fixed and mobile phone services into a single subscription.
This is not supplier convergence because they are not merging and forming a united line of products, but simply complementing each other with a business partnership (Slywotzky et al. 1999).