5 people. 5 spreadsheets. 5 different answers about the same supplier.

5 people.

5 spreadsheets.

5 different answers about the same supplier.

Welcome to cross‑functional supplier management.    It’s like Matrix management - without Neo and Trinity, but with someone called Colin.

A place where truth goes to die.

Ask procurement about a supplier:

“They’re fine. Contract in place. Risk low.  Nothing to see here, please move along.”

Ask quality:

“They failed an audit in 2019 and we’ve been ‘monitoring’ ever since.”

Ask sustainability:

“They haven’t submitted their carbon data. Again. We are not sure whether we should be using them as their carbon footprint is unknown; mind you we can’t be sure of anyone’s carbon footprint, what with Scope 3 complexity, but don’t get me started….”  

Ask finance:

“They’re on credit hold.   We also want to talk to them about moving them to 120 days payment terms.”

Ask operations:

“They’re brilliant. Never had an issue.   And they’re taking me to the Cup Final next month.”

And all of them are right.

Because all of them are working from their own personal spreadsheet of truth, lovingly maintained, stored on a desktop, with an older version shared on Sharepoint, but that one isn’t the latest version because the file name is:

“Supplier_ABC123_Overview_v3_NEW_NEW_revised_final2 NOT UPDATED.xlsx”

This is what happens when supplier data lives in silos.

Procurement sees one slice.

Quality sees another.

Sustainability sees a third.

Nobody sees the whole picture.   Except possibly Colin, but he’s on holiday in Rhyl, Wales.

And then you end up in a meeting where everyone confidently states a different, conflicting  point about the same supplier like it’s a game of “Guess Who?”.

“Does your supplier have glasses?”

“No.”

“Then why are they on credit hold?”

“Because finance said so.”

“Finance, is this true?”

“We’d like to put them onto 180 day payment terms.”

The cost of this chaos?

• Decisions made on partial information

• Conflicting priorities

• Duplicate work

• Surprise risks

• And meetings that should’ve been emails but weren’t, because nobody trusts anyone else’s data

The best teams don’t tolerate this.

They build a shared view.

One place where supplier performance, risk, sustainability, compliance, and relationship history actually live together like adults.  With a rota for the washing up.

Procurement Says No is proudly sponsored by @Kodiak Hub, and our arrangement means we can say whatever we want about them, and they won’t get upset.

We like @Kodiak Hub because they’re giving procurement, quality, sustainability, and operations a single, structured, 360° supplier view so you don’t need to summon five spreadsheets and a séance to understand what’s going on.

If your organisation is currently playing “Guess Who?”, and thinks the supplier wears glasses and has brown hair, then take a look.  

Tell me…

Have you ever been in a meeting where nobody could agree on a supplier’s status?