Last week, I spent some time with Costas Xyloyiannis, the self-confessed computer geek and founder of HICX, the software-as-a-service firm who specialise in supplier information / master data management. We’ll have much more coming soon on that interview, but one point he made resonated as I made it myself during a webinar a few months back.
It relates to the way we segment suppliers. Traditionally, we might look at what we could define as tactical or transactional suppliers at that bottom of the pyramid, then routine / operational, then perhaps a dozen or two “strategic” or “collabrative”suppliers, and right at the top, a handful of true “partners”, firms who are strongly entwined with our organisation at the most important level.
For many of the activities and…
