by Janice Marquardt | Aug 13, 2024 | Creative Solutions, Processes
The hot topic in supply chain for the last few years has been supply chain disruption. Supply Chain Brain’s annual supplier partnership publication is themed around disruption, everyone working anywhere in supply chain in 2021 remembers what working through disruption...
by Janice Marquardt | Aug 6, 2024 | Definitions, Savings, Supply Chain Career
The inimitable Mathew Schulz posted on LinkedIn last week about how the best procurement pros chase value instead of savings. This got me thinking about savings vs. value, and the differences between a procurement team who thinks tactically vs. one who thinks...
by Janice Marquardt | Jul 30, 2024 | Definitions, Savings
Language matters. Early in my supply chain career, my supply chain leader sat across his desk from me and told me, “Vendors sell hot dogs. Suppliers are partners.” I think I was implementing a supplier scorecard program at the time and was constantly referring to our...
by Janice Marquardt | Jul 23, 2024 | Supply Chain Career
Anyone who has been in multiple negotiations has dealt with dirty, hardball tactics. Maybe you’ve even used them yourself in an attempt to gain the upper hand. While related to negotiations focused on changing the rules, hardball tactics are in a little different...
by Janice Marquardt | Jul 16, 2024 | Definitions, Processes, Savings
One of the best tools to share price risks between buyers and suppliers is index-linked pricing. Most procurement professionals have heard of and used commodity indices to tie pricing to the wider market, but in short they are a third-party tracking tool for commodity...
