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Contracts: Critical for Risk Mitigation and Building Value
Today’s article talks about why _your_ business needs contracts (beyond POs) and specifically where you can push for value with your suppliers. I also tell a little story about purple streetlights and how that relates to contract clauses. (Have you seen any of those purple streetlights anywhere?)
Enjoy Your Holidays
Today’s article talks about what you need to be doing to plan, execute, and celebrate before the end of 2025. All the credit goes to Mathew Schulz for inspiring today’s post, and his post that inspired it is linked in the article. There are a lot of things you can do today to ensure peaceful holidays (and less chaos!) in December.
We Can’t Do The Things Without the Stuff
Today’s article is inspired by an exclamation in a recent conference call: We can’t do the things without the stuff. Let’s talk about the stuff supply chain needs, what things we can do when we get it, and how we can get what we need so we can succeed. Incidentally, this article also ends up being a pretty good summary of supply chain and how to rock at being a supply chain professional.
Advanced E-auction Tools: Bid Transformation
Today’s article talks about bid transformation: What it is, how it works, applications, and concrete things to think about when using it. We’re deep into e-auction geekiness today, but all of these things also apply to complicated bids where we need to consider our Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Today’s article talks about bid transformation: What it is, how it works, applications, and concrete things to think about when using it. We’re deep into e-auction geekiness today, but all of these things also apply to complicated bids where we need to consider our Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Vendor-managed Inventory (VMI): Trusted Suppliers, Real Pitfalls, and Best Practices
Today’s article talks about vendor-managed inventory (aka VMI), including common VMI suppliers, VMI pitfalls (especially a little-known one that shows up with the most common VMI supplier with the iconic blue vending machines), and concrete best practices for a good VMI program.
Why Direct and Indirect Spend Aren’t Just Jargon (and Why You Should Care)
Today’s article talks about direct and indirect spend – what is this categorization, why this classification (or a similar one) matters, and the skill sets needed in each to succeed. I also dig a little into one of the Great Procurement Debates: which indirect categories should the business unit manage vs. the procurement team manage? I’ll also tell you which one is my personal favorite and why.
No Software, No Problem: A Quick and Dirty Spend Analysis
Today’s article is a step-by-step guide to running a quick-and-dirty spend analysis using only Excel. Are there better tools out there? Sure. But if you just need a decent view of your spend by supplier, category, and part number, a spreadsheet will get you there. I also cover concrete questions to ask about your spend analysis, whether you use my method or another. A spend analysis is only useful if you then DO something with it!
Don’t Start from Zero: When and How to Use Procurement Wrap Agreements
After a hard-fought battle, you finally have contract terms and conditions with a supplier. Awesome! But now you want to use that same supplier for a different material or different scope of work, and the idea of renegotiating that contract again is daunting. It’s...
Build Value in Supply Chain by Thinking Like an Engineer
Like most supply chain/procurement professionals, I definitely didn’t start here. I was going to be an engineer, climbing the expected chain from Design Engineer to Project Engineer to Engineering Manager and then maybe VP of Engineering. It was going to be organized,...
Lump Sum vs. Unit Price: Procurement Lessons from 30,000 Feet
On a call with a client today, they asked me how a “lump sum” bid is different from a “unit price” bid. This led to a larger discussion about risk vs. cost in a supply chain and this client team said to me, “You should write an article about this topic.” So here we...
Lessons Learned from Eight Small Midwest Manufacturing Supply Chains
A few months ago, I had the immense privilege of working with the team at Iowa State University’s Center for Industrial Research and Service (CIRAS) to assess the supply chains at eight small Iowa-based manufacturers. The lessons we learned and their common threads...
E-auctions Are A Chainsaw
When I tell people e-auctions are a negotiation tool in the toolbox, they often go straight to “e-auctions are a hammer.” But a hammer doesn’t have flexibility or grace, it can basically do one thing. I say e-auctions are a chainsaw. If that evokes a slightly visceral...
AI, BI, CI and DI: The Progression of Artificial Intelligence
AI is the biggest buzzword of the day. To Joël Collin-Demers’ point, if you can substitute the word “computers” or “technology” for AI in a sentence, it’s probably not true AI but instead is a clever use of technology. While technology is still valuable and...
Tariffs Will Settle At About 10%: An ISM World 2025 Keynote Roundup
To the chorus of a thousand clinking name badges, we sat down last week to the ISMWorld 2025 keynote speaker: Kevin O’Leary. “Mr. Wonderful.” His insights and thoughts over the next hour or so were fascinating, thought-provoking, and edged into thoughtful criticism of...
How to Be an Intern
It’s intern season! I loved being an intern. There was so much to learn about the company, the job, and why (and whether) my major actually mattered. I had a total of four internships in college because I had two while I was finishing up an advanced degree, so I...
A Bucket, a Dipper, and an Agreement: Making Blanket Orders Work for You
I frequently see companies early in their supply chain maturity journey using blanket purchase orders almost like a “light contract.” At first I found this somewhat odd, but for a company with a small supply chain, it makes sense. Blanket orders don’t require nearly...
My publishing journey . . . so far
Today is the day. Publishing day. My book, Transform Procurement: The Value of E-auctions, comes out today. I implemented my first e-auction program basically without guidance, and I’m hoping my book helps give people a quick roadmap so they don’t have to take two...
Supply Chain Maturity: When is Your Organization Ready for E-auctions?
Inevitably when you write a book, there are pieces you find you left out. It’s like DaVinci said - “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” Only in this case, a book is never finished, but at some point your publisher says, “It’s done now, leave it!” So as we get down...
Telling Your Story: Charts That Present Your Data to Best Effect
A large part of many corporate jobs is presenting data. Typically presented in chart form, data is intended to help others (especially management) make decisions, plan for the future, and understand the current state. This is especially true in a supply chain team,...
Diversity is a Second Choice
I’ve been hesitant to write this week’s article because it feels scary and vulnerable. In the current U.S. political climate, “diversity” is an incendiary word. But it’s also something that comes up time and again in a supply chain - not just within the people in an...
Avoiding the Race to the Bottom: How Go/No-Go Criteria Save E-auctions
The what-about-ism in e-auctions runs strong, and nowhere does it run stronger than the question “What about if an e-auction becomes a race to the bottom?” In the early 2000s, e-auctions often did become a race to the bottom. There was no Request for Proposal (RFP)...
Harnessing the Pareto Principle: Get Better Results with Less Effort
“The 80/20 rule always applies” is a phrase I’ve lived with so long I don’t even know where I heard it first. But I’ve definitely repeated it - to my teams, to clients, to my poor family who are no longer at all interested (if they ever were). But what is it, why and...
So Your Company Hired a Consultant—Now What?
So you’ve been invited to a meeting with the consultant your company just hired. Ugh. What do they even know? They’re going to come in with their glossy PowerPoints and get everyone riled up, and then they’re going to leave you holding the ball. It doesn’t have to be...
From ABC to XYZ: How to Thoughtfully Manage Your Inventory
Back in January, we talked about tail spend and ways to reduce your spend with the bottom 20% of suppliers. But what if you don’t really know which tail spend items/suppliers to keep and which to get rid of? What else should we think about when classifying our...