Strategic Sourcing & Stakeholder Resistance

Will Stakeholders Undermine Your Sourcing Work?
"You can sign a contract with whomever you want. But ourdivision won't use your supplier!"
Have you ever heard this type of statement? Many strategicsourcing leaders have. Their work is a struggle.
As a reaction to resistance, many strategic sourcing leadersseek ways to force business units to support their supplierselections. But the best practice for reducing maverickspending is proactively preventing resistance.
How do you prevent resistance to strategic sourcinginitiatives? You have to involve your stakeholders. Andtheir involvement can't be superficial - they must have inputinto key decisions throughout the sourcing process.
To implement this best practice, simply plan on havingstakeholders present when each of the following questions areanswered within the sourcing process.
1. What are our specifications?
2. What are our supplier performance requirements?
3. What suppliers are we going to invite to bid?
4. How are suppliers differentiated and what is the measurable value of the differences between them?
5. What criteria are we going to use to evaluate proposals and suppliers?
6. What are the relative weightings of those criteria?
7. What hidden and tangential costs may we face that could distort our total cost of ownership calculation?
8. What costs of poor performance might we incur?
9. Who makes the final supplier selection decision?
10. What is the process for dealing with poor performance from the selected supplier?
Stakeholder suggestions may not always match the finaldecisions. These decisions will require collaborativeinternal negotiation. But using this best practice will helpyou avoid the "We won't use that supplier!" threat.