Monthly Archives: April 2006

• Are your vendors the Spice Girls or Arcadia?

  Posted on April 30, 2006 by hudgeon in VendorManagement

  For years now, I've listened to Yahoo Music but I've recently switched to Pandora because it does a better job of selecting the music I want to hear. For those of you who don't know, Yahoo and Pandora are online radio stations that select music based on the listener’s preferences. Despite the similarities, they approach [...]

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• Efficient RFT process v. contract management: Part 2

  Posted on April 29, 2006 by hudgeon in VendorManagement

  I've received quite a few requests for the spreadsheet shown in the post below. Many of the emails told stories of working in procurement departments with compulsory go-to-market policies. The following is from Steve Murphy talking about his experiences with a previous employer: I have worked in procurement organizations that were audited to insure that [...]

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  Quick and dirty financial model: Efficient RFT processes v. contract management: Part 1

  Posted on April 21, 2006 by hudgeon in VendorManagement

  I've noticed that companies with under-resourced procurement departments are often so overwhelmed with day-to-day vendor management issues that they roll-over contracts rather than go to market. I've decided to do a quick and dirty model showing the cost of not going to market. The assumptions in the model below are that the procurement department manages [...]

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• Inflexible contracts and wobbly cafe tables

  Posted on April 21, 2006 by hudgeon in VendorManagement

  Earlier this week I watched a show called the New Inventors. Each week three crackpots (and I mean that in the nicest way) come on the show to demonstrate their inventions. Given the program is shown on the Australian public broadcasting network, it is not surprising that inventions with an agricultural or environmental application usually [...]

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  Outsourcing contracts: Not all fairness is equal

  Posted on April 17, 2006 by hudgeon in VendorManagement

  An interesting study in the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics confirms a growing body of work showing that people care more about procedural fairness than distributive fairness. How does this apply to vendor management? It may mean that a buyer or vendor who is getting less than they expected won't react provided [...]

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• Linking payment to the creation-of-value rather than the following-of-process

  Posted on April 15, 2006 by hudgeon in VendorManagement

  For some work that I'm doing, I re-visited this past week an interesting article by Nick Malik on drafting RFTs for agile projects (how good is the internet!). Nick's recommended drafting methodolgy is aimed at ensuring payment is linked to the creation-of-value rather than the following-of-process. Inside Architecture : Agile Vendor Management – removing waterfall [...]

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• Using corrective plans to lift a relationship back onto the rails

  Posted on April 15, 2006 by hudgeon in VendorManagement

  Richard Raysman and Peter Brown in the New York Law journal set out some “vendor management 101″ lessons for crisis management in outsourcing agreements. The real lesson is that the relationship should not have been allowed to get to that state in the first place. Problems with service delivery or contract management tend to become [...]

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• Tying some vendor management threads together

  Posted on April 8, 2006 by hudgeon in VendorManagement

  Earlier today, I reviewed my posts and decided that I should have tag-lined my blog "Sh*t happens. Deal with it". I intended to write about all aspects of vendor management but I've found I've focused solely on the importance of building sufficient flexibility into contractual relationships to allow them to handle unforeseen events that occur [...]

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• Flexible vendor management

  Posted on April 8, 2006 by hudgeon in VendorManagement

  Yet another article on the importance of building flexibility into relationships: Business Finance Even when companies research, plan and enter a partnership with the best of intentions, it is still important for them to have a predefined process for dealing with problems and conflicts as they arise. "Flexibility post-agreement is just as important as flexibility [...]

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• Dave Stephens on supplier strategy

  Posted on April 8, 2006 by hudgeon in VendorManagement

  Dave Stephens has some great commentary on the role of the supplier in strategic execution. His basic contention is that, as the cost of dealing with additional suppliers falls, buyers can contract with exactly the right supplier to serve their strategic goals. This may lead to an increase in the number of suppliers a company [...]

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