Author: Janice Marquardt
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Contract Negotiation Deep Dive: Forecasting and Delivery Requirements
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney and cannot give legal advice. This series is from a supply chain practitioner’s perspective on negotiating contracts and is simply offering my perspective on common contract clauses. Seek professional legal advice for your own contracts. In our continuing series on contract clauses from a supply chain perspective, last week… Read more
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Contract Negotiation Deep Dive: Law Compliance and Purchase Orders
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney and cannot give legal advice. This series is from a supply chain practitioner’s perspective on negotiating contracts and is simply offering my perspective on common contract clauses. Seek professional legal advice for your own contracts. In our continuing series on contract clauses from a supply chain perspective, last week… Read more
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Contract Negotiation Deep Dive: Pricing Control and Quality Clauses
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney and cannot give legal advice. This series is from a supply chain practitioner’s perspective on negotiating contracts and is simply offering my perspective on common contract clauses. Seek professional legal advice for your own contracts. Last week we started a deep dive series on contract clauses from a supply… Read more
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Contract Negotiation Deep Dive: Introductory Clauses
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney and cannot give legal advice. This series is from a supply chain practitioner’s perspective on negotiating contracts and is simply offering my perspective on common contract clauses. Seek professional legal advice for your own contracts. Today’s article kicks off a series on supplier contract negotiation, which is where I… Read more
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The Do’s and Don’ts of Attending Internal Customer Staff Meetings
As a supply chain professional, it’s incredibly easy to fall into the “they vs. we” trap. “They” are the internal customer, the engineer, the end user, the operations team. “We” are the procurement, supply chain, or logistics team. While there are many ways to start shifting this mentality and start healing the rift between supply… Read more
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Bonded Warehouses and FTZs: Your Guide to Import Optimization
I first encountered Foreign Trade Zones (FTZs) and bonded warehouses while working for a manufacturer who was getting many components out of China. Before that point, most of my employers were getting the majority of their shipments domestically, either from US manufacturers or through distribution. FTZs and bonded warehouses are a fascinating approach to importing… Read more
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Supply Chain Disruption: Predicting Supplier Bad Days
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 looks like, and continuing global conflicts impact everything from grain to nickel. Executive leadership teams… Read more
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From Tactical to Strategic: Why Procurement Needs to Chase Value, Not Just Savings
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 strategically. One reason I left a previous employer was that a change in… Read more
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Do You Have Vendors or Suppliers?
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 suppliers as vendors. Since that moment, every time someone… Read more
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Dirty Negotiation Tactics and How to Counter Them
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 category. Most importantly, hardball tactics are all about short-term gain with no… Read more