by Janice Marquardt | Sep 15, 2026 | Processes
I’ve never met a supply chain team that didn’t already know some things were broken. I’ve started asking in most of my initial assessment interviews, “Is there anything else you wish your COO/CEO/Supply Chain Leader knew?” Most leaders I know think their team will...
by Janice Marquardt | Sep 1, 2026 | Processes, Supply Chain Career
I’ve worked in and with quite a few supply chain teams. I’ve worked with small teams, large ones, from old companies and new ones; yet none of those factors actually affect a team’s “busyness.” More importantly, an extremely busy team is not always a very productive...
by Janice Marquardt | Jul 14, 2026 | e-Auctions, Processes
There’s a bit of a debate in e-auction circles. Really, there are several, but let’s focus on one in particular: To RFP or not to RFP? If you’ve been reading my articles for a while, you know I favor an RFP before an e-auction in most situations. However, there are no...
by Janice Marquardt | Jul 7, 2026 | Processes
Qualifying new suppliers is one of those activities that seems like it should be easy, but is surprisingly hard. I’ve seen companies of all sizes and in all industries struggle with supplier onboarding, qualifying enough suppliers for a given category (but not too...
by Janice Marquardt | Apr 7, 2026 | Org Chart, Processes
Most procurement teams don’t have a category strategy problem, they have a category taxonomy problem. If your categories are unclear, inconsistent, or overly broad, everything built on top of them starts to break down. And yet, category taxonomy is something that...
by Janice Marquardt | Mar 31, 2026 | e-Auctions, Processes
Ahead of the ISM World conference coming up, I asked my network: What do you want me to cover in my presentations on e-auctions? I received a variety of answers and feedback, and the one that sparked me most came from a supplier. Dan Lunoe at Bamko responded: “I would...
