Competitive sourcing
Take the requirement to the market against one set of criteria, with the incumbent included.
Stage 4 of 5 ยท Execute
Act when the evidence supports it.
How does this actually get done?
A decision that nobody executes is an expensive way to produce a document. This stage is where the recommendation becomes a change in the world, and it takes whatever form the decision actually calls for. Sourcing is the one people expect. It is one of nine.
Execution is not one thing
Sourcing is a path, not the destination.
Going to market is the reflex, and it is often wrong. It is slow, it consumes goodwill, and it is the most expensive way to discover that your existing agreement was fine. What the evidence supports is what should happen, and depending on the decision that may be any of these.
Renegotiation
Often the right answer. Changing provider is expensive, and a better agreement with the one you have can beat a move.
Consolidation
Where the same requirement is being met several times over, usually because it was bought several times over.
Modernization
When the architecture, not the price, is what is wrong.
Remediation
Fixing what the Baseline found: a service with no agreement, a rate that does not match the contract, an owner nobody assigned.
Implementation
Turning a signed decision into tasks, owners and dates that someone is accountable for.
Provider transition
Moving between providers without losing the record of what was in place and why.
Restructured agreements
Same provider, different commercial shape: term, commitment, escalators, the conditions attached.
Validation
Confirming the change actually happened and the saving actually landed. Skipping this is how savings become theoretical.
Which path applies is a judgment made in the previous stage, on the evidence, by a person who has to defend it. How decisions get made.
Technology sourcing
Where sourcing is the answer, Vera runs the event.
Runs the supplier event end to end: authorization, distribution, follow up, and response collection, then lays the responses side by side against one set of criteria.
What Vera will not do
Vera will not send a message until a person approves the draft. Not a setting. The send is blocked until the approval exists.
Sourcing has its own depth: how a sourcing event runs, andwhat changes when the decision is architectural.
Who is accountable
Strategy, negotiation and the outcome stay with a person.
Your advisor sets the approach, runs the negotiation, manages the provider relationship and answers for how it turns out. The platform holds the requirements, the responses, the comparison and the decision trail underneath that work, so the reasoning is still there when the agreement comes up again. The workers do the parts that repeat.
And the change gets checked. A saving that was never validated against a later invoice is a projection, and it should be described as one until the evidence catches up with it.
The cycle
- BaselineWhat is actually true about our technology environment?
- BenchmarkHow does our position compare to the market?
- DecideWhat should we do, and can we defend it?
- ExecuteHow does this actually get done?
- GovernHow do we keep this from drifting again?
Govern keeps the Baseline current, and the cycle starts again.
Bring the decision that has stalled.
Most of them stall for the same reason: nobody owns the next step and nothing forces the date.