There have been dramatic changes in the relationship between industrial buyers and suppliers over the past decade. Partnerships between larger buyers and suppliers are widely reported. The picture for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is less clear. In order to address this issue a mail survey of over 600 SMEs was carried out. The results suggest that the current level of partnership development is not high. However, they also indicate that there have been small but significant favourable changes in several factors underlying successful partnerships. This suggests that SMEs may be following, albeit with a lag of several years, the partnership sourcing methods being adopted by large firms.