(Making It Work in the Real World) You’ve built the sourcing plan, everyone nodded enthusiastically in meetings, and now it’s time to actually make it happen. This is where theory meets reality (and reality usually has opinions). Execution and monitoring are what separate procurement heroes from procurement horror
(Your Roadmap to Success) You’ve aligned stakeholders and turned their wish lists into measurable objectives. Great. Now comes the part where you actually figure out how to deliver. Enter the sourcing plan (your roadmap to success, or at least your roadmap to keeping everyone from panicking). Why You Need
(Turning Ideas into Action) Stakeholders love to share what they want. Sometimes it’s practical, sometimes it’s a wish list that belongs in a fairy tale. Your job? Turn those ideas into sourcing objectives that are measurable, realistic, and actually achievable. Because “make it perfect and cheap” is not
(The Foundation of Procurement Success) Procurement isn’t just about buying stuff. It’s about making sure everyone who cares about that stuff (and trust me, there are plenty) is on the same page. When stakeholders aren’t aligned, procurement turns into a game of “guess what I’m thinking”
This weekly series is a practical guide to the next era of work, without hype or hyperbole. It will focus on how businesses are actually using AI, where real value is emerging, and what these changes mean for the people inside these organizations. Instead of speculating about distant futures, I’
Contracts look great on paper—until something goes wrong. That’s when everyone starts scrambling, sending frantic emails, and wondering why no one thought ahead. Enter the risk register, your secret weapon for staying calm when things get messy. Why Bother With a Risk Register? Because “we’ll deal with
Contracts are really really long. You can’t possibly care about everything on it right? Honestly? Focus on the really important stuff, make it clear, and keep it accessible. Create a contract summary sheet, think one-pager so you don’t have to read the sixty-pager every time. It should include:
Ok, you’ve broken down the contract into responsibilities, risks, penalties, KPIs and SLAs. Now it’s time to turn all that information into a Governance Framework that actually works for you and your team. The simplest way to begin is by going line by line. Ask yourself: Who is
Your business needed this contract signed and now it’s done (great job!). So, what’s next? If you’ve been following along with us, you know it’s time to actually read that contract and set up a system to manage it. Bonus points if you have a real
This week I’ve talked about two fundamentals of vendor, sourcing, and contract management: Step One: Read the contract. Step Two: Create a system to manage it. Sounds simple, right? Yet every organization, big or small, struggles with these basics. Why? Because it’s not glamorous. No one wants to
As I worked through my summer job at the masonry company, my notebook was filling up fast. Then it hit me. At the end of the summer, I was supposed to give them something they could actually use, and my scribbles weren’t going to cut it. The only tool
I was sixteen when I landed my first office job. The owner of a masonry company needed someone to organize expenses and agreements. That meant going through hundreds of pages of contracts and creating some kind of system. The office manager set me up and shared her woes of keeping