To hell with the useless bankers, now we are the banks. This kind of heresy is rife in the boardrooms of Europe's biggest manufacturers, where the top brass are adjusting to their new role as moneylenders.

Big old industrial companies are mostly uncrunched by this credit crisis. Unless they have been acquiring rivals, their balance sheets are reasonably healthy, unburdened by excessive debt. However, that will not leave them unscathed if a bank refuses credit to a big customer or denies funding to a key supplier.

Bankrolling your customer, known as vendor financing, is not a new idea. The aircraft industry has been doing this for decades and banks generally stand behind the transactions in one way or another. The idea is that the manufacturer can secure cheaper funding than the airline, but some companies in other sectors are now seeking to use this financial crunch to push a commercial advantage.

Siemens said last week that it would use its balance sheet to help its customers. Siemens Financial Services is small compared with GE, the American electrical giant, but, unlike its rival, it didn't dabble in toxic debt securities and the German company obviously sees a commercial advantage in selling project finance while its rival struggles. Joe Kaeser, Siemens' finance director, said that the unit's banking activity would be a competitive advantage.

It's quite another thing, however, to bankroll your suppliers, but several corporates are looking at doing just that. The motivation to provide funding for a supplier is not the same. The reason to fund someone who sells you a product is defensive - without the funding, the deal could not easily be done - but it is also self-interested.

The credit drought is affecting small and middle-ranking companies. Those with small balance sheets and weak credit histories get the worst funding deals. The drought in trade finance was discussed at the G20 summit, but even at the level of day-to-day overdrafts small companies are having problems and these companies may supply vital components or raw materials to large manufacturers. If the widget supplier has a sudden liquidity problem, this problem can lead to supply chain delays or even failures.

It's the old nursery rhyme: “for want of a nail ... the shoe was lost”. Unsurprisingly, tales of supplier rescue finance are emerging thick and fast in the automotive and aerospace sectors, where a horseshoe nail or its contemporary equivalent is a critical component at an Airbus factory or a Volkswagen assembly plant.

The latter has created a team to monitor the health of its suppliers, while EADS, the Airbus parent, agreed to pay in advance Latécoère, one of its key suppliers, when delays in Airbus projects were causing funding difficulties.

Dieter Zetsche, Daimler's chief executive, recently gave warning of the danger that automotive suppliers faced collapse and revealed that it was already helping some companies with cash to meet their commitments.

The slowdown in the vehicle sector is dramatic and the cancellation of shifts on assembly lines or even temporary factory closures is possible. Even if that is sustainable for a Volkswagen, it could be life-threatening for a supplier.

It's not merely the engineering sector that is affected. One leading European household goods manufacturer is conducting a detailed analysis of the health of its supply chain and has identified ten companies out of 400 key suppliers that it intends to monitor closely.

Nor is it only product suppliers that can cause problems. Big oil companies are keeping an eye on contractors, lest a key skill is lost because of the financial failure of a service supplier. Of course, the question arises: how far will they go? If push comes to shove, what will Global Incorporated do if Widgets of Slough or Troubleshooters of Aberdeen looks like it might be heading down the pan?

There comes a point where funding becomes tantamount to control. In July, this column looked at the quest for vertical integration in heavy industry. Seeking better deals on expensive raw materials, steelmakers are rushing back to the mine, backing up their mills with secure supplies of ore and coking coal.

Commodity prices have subsided, but it would be wrong to think that vertical integration is a passing fashion created by the pressure of commodity inflation. In times of financial stress, companies will look for security, in supplies, in customer relationships and in proximity to resources.

In many companies, these resources are not raw materials but people. During the past two decades, disintegration was in vogue and companies shed business units and entire divisions in a drive for simplicity, often supported by fantastic stock market valuation theories. Easy credit enabled former service units to become autonomous businesses and some thrived.

Big companies lost skills, the oil industry lost an entire generation of technologists and engineers. These sold their services to former employers, but the credit crunch is beginning to expose the vulnerability of the outsourcing model.

When more than half of a company's revenues depend on the whim of a single customer, it begs the question whether a business is autonomous. It may be time for some to return to the fold.

carl.mortished@thetimes.co.uk

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