Tag: communications
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The Ten People You Meet in Supply Chain
In my time in supply chain, I’ve found there’s a few personalities that keep popping up. Some of them show up in every supply chain team I’ve ever been a part of. Some only show up in the larger teams, and some of these people definitely show up in non-supply chain teams as well. I… Read more
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The Hidden Costs of Change Orders—and How Supply Chain Can Mitigate Them
Ah, change orders. While it is often necessary to change a project (and therefore change pricing) while that project is ongoing, change orders are frustrating for everyone involved. Large change orders can cause a blame game where everyone in a company blames everyone else for cost overruns. So how can a supply chain professional help… Read more
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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: 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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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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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
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Contracts in Focus: Understanding Contracts as Instruments of Purpose
This morning as I checked my inbox, I had a survey waiting for me from World Commerce and Contracting. The survey sparked me because it asked a set of questions about the purposes of contracts, and I found my answers highly varied across the questions. I will note that I am a believer in contracts… Read more
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The Power of Brevity: Crafting Impactful Executive Summaries for Supply Chain Success
One of my clients had a communication problem. It wasn’t the usual “not enough” problem that so often comes up, it was an executive summary problem. The supply chain leader was doing beautiful, in-depth bid analyses with long spreadsheets and each supplier’s column in a different color. They looked like every bid analysis I’ve ever… Read more