According to the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), buyers are 57% through their buying process (gathering information and determining specifications and requirements) before reaching out to suppliers. The remaining 43% of the buyers’ time is devoted to the RFP process,...
The “cheap and cheerful” cost cutting train has left the station and it is not coming back anytime soon. I firmly believe that companies and organizations that think an outsource provider can provide easy cost cutting measures are standing at the wrong train platform....
Innovation transforms something, whether a process or a machine. It is more than an incremental improvement—saving “fingers and toes” worth of time, effort or money. Many companies, if not all, claim that they want their supplier pool to bring them innovative ideas....
I lost big playing a negotiation game at the University of Tennessee. My team was caught off guard by our opponents’ tactics. Our opponents were “playing not to lose.” HUH? I play to win. I thought everyone played to win. The other team were wolves in sheep’s...
3 steps to getting all the stakeholders to say yes. It takes four or more people to say yes to any deal. Can you get all of them to say yes? If you have any doubts at all, watch this brief video to learn the 3 steps to getting all the stakeholders to say...
Imagine that you are reading the Sunday paper. You suddenly see your vendor’s company name in an article about their stock value plunging on news that they were experiencing “constraints” delivering their services. On August 10th, that very thing happened to the...
