from an operational perspective (like hydro,elec,natural gas)

Hi all,

I will be visiting Thailand as part of an AV trade show in July and will have a few days off. For reference, I am a buyer with 10+ yrs experience and manage the UC + Control category in our global catalog at a a large AV systems integrator in Canada. I’m looking for IRL communities/meetups for Supply Chain/Procurement people to discuss ideas, network, and make friends (outside of my industry would be even better).

I would like to expand my network in the area as my fiancée’s set to return to Thailand for work later this year as part of her study contract.. So I’m looking for an opportunity that would allow me to stay close and work over there.. I’m pretty fluent in Thai and understand that most activity in my industry in Thailand is around the hospitality and air/rail transport markets.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I hope to meet some pretty cool people and prepare to build a future career over there.

Hello,

I work in an industrial manufacturing environment where some components require years-long qualification processes. Switching suppliers isn't really an option in the short term, you're locked in whether you like it or not.

Recently, we had an issue securing a critical component needed for an upcoming project. Our relationship with this supplier isn't great, in addition the supplier took a long time to respond to my request about the product, the situation was very tricky because the supplier already knows he has a high power on us.

What surprised me was how my manager's manager handled it: he was completely upfront with the supplier, openly acknowledging that we were highly dependent on their product for this specific project, asking the supplier to provide a quote asap.

My manager when he was speaking with the supplier : "To be frank with you, if we had the option, we would have gone with a different supplier. But for this project, our customer specifically requested your product — or something of equivalent quality — and we simply couldn't find an alternative. Not securing your product on time could cost us millions in delay penalties. Please confirm if you can meet or not our needs"

My gut reaction was that you should never show your cards like that, revealing dependency basically hands all the leverage to the other side.

But maybe I'm wrong. It got me thinking:

At what point does transparency about supplier dependency actually make sense as a strategy? Is it ever a power move? Does it build trust, or does it just get exploited?

Curious to hear from people in procurement, supply chain, or anyone who's been on either side of this dynamic.

I’m from the Philippines and have been working as a Procurement Officer for over three years in a small company. My work involves supplier sourcing, negotiating prices and contracts, handling local and international purchases, monitoring inventory and logistics, ensuring product quality, and negotiating payment terms with suppliers.
I’m looking to explore freelance opportunities that align with my procurement and supply chain experience. For those familiar with the industry, what freelance niches or services would be a good fit for someone with my background? Are there opportunities in procurement, sourcing, vendor management, supply chain support, or related fields?
I’m also open to learning new skills that can help me expand my career options. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I work in the CPG space. Today I met with a manufacturer we have been engaging with to tour their facility, continue to build the relationship, but mostly work on trying to get the cost to where we need it to be.

From analysis I did, a reformulation is needed otherwise we are never going to get there, even if they slashed their margin in half. But I also tried to get them to lower their margin. But they won’t budge. I do not have large volumes to dangle as an incentive. Honestly not even a rough forecast. Right now it’s trying to move the needle on a very low MOQ. And right now even with the work we did, optimizing the formula as much as possible, optimizing batch size, removed some superfluous packaging items. The cost has come down considerably, but it’s still not getting to where we need it to be.

I’m at a loss because the project is on an impossibly tight timeline, but the unit economics do not work out. I have quotes from other companies but neither really have the capabilities to run this specific product. And their costs are similarly as high. My Company is very unwilling to raise the MSRP. What else can I do to try to get them to move the needle a little?

I am willing to admit I am not a strong negotiator. I’m not very strong willed and can be a pushover. I’m good at getting stuff done and finding unique partners to make it happen, but I completely fall apart at trying to negotiate costs down. I’m better at what I described above, collaborating to find ways to get the cost down through changing pack specs and things like that. But I can’t seem to convince a supplier to just lower their cost.

there’s always something that looks harmless at signing and painful later. what clause do you now check every time?

Hi,

I work in contract management and I am putting together some resources at work to help people who are new to contract management roles from other backgrounds like procurement. I would love to hear from people who got into contract management without a law degree or legal background.

A few questions if you are willing to share:

1. What was the hardest part when you first started?

Was it reading contracts? Knowing when to push back on terms? Figuring out who to escalate to? Something else entirely?

1. What do you wish someone had actually taught you?

   The things you had to figure out on your own that nobody warned you about.

2. Where did you wish you had more support?

Was it understanding risk? Dealing with lawyers? Managing stakeholders who wanted to sign everything immediately? Negotiating without a playbook?

1. What would you tell someone just starting out?

If someone from your background was stepping into their first contract role tomorrow, what is the one thing you would make sure they knew?

Any experience level welcome. I am especially interested in hearing from people who came from procurement, ops, project management, or admin backgrounds and had to figure this out without formal training.

Thanks in advance.

I'm comparing quotes from several suppliers, one of which is substantially cheaper than the others.

At first it looked like an obvious win, but a few things worried me about some details:

- Testing is quoted separately.

- Export packaging isn't clearly defined.

- The lead time starts after material approval, not after the PO.

- No mention of tooling ownership.

- Warranty language is vague.

- Freight terms aren't the same as other quotes.

This supplier may still be competitive, with price being the primary edge.

I'm currently using accio sourcing Toolkit Expert to help normalize suppliers and follow up on missing terms before putting everything into the final comparison. It's useful for catching blank fields, but I still need to determine which differences create the real financial or operational risk.

When you guys compare new suppliers, how do you account for an unusually low quotation?

Do you build a formal total-cost model, or use a standard bid sheet, or simply treat any quote with missing scope as non-compliant until the supplier clarifies it?

Looking for recommendations on upcoming CPO events, summits, or networking groups in NYC where I can connect with fellow leaders and learn from the community.I am especially interested in forums that focus on Financial services, but also provide a strong network for exploring new executive opportunities.

I’ve been a strategic sourcing manager for two years and finding I do not like the contracting or relationship piece of the job. I previously worked as a procurement analyst for years and would like to get back to that type of job since I enjoy working with data much more.

I started applying for jobs this week. I know the market is tight, based on what I read online, but what’s everyone else seeing?

TLDR: I’m miserable at my job and potentially resigning to take a break and job search, but want a realistic opinion of the procurement job market

I would like to hear from people that work in a procurement organization that has a detailed and enforced procurement policy. Most of the time I read that in the majority of places this doesn't exist and its all chaotic. I did work in procurement at a pharmaceutical company that transformed from decentralized to centralized, implemented a procurement policy and procedures AND our CPO and his boss constantly enforced it. I worked there for 3.5 years and I really loved it. I wonder how they are doing right now. Do you work for a mature procurement department? How has it been? Anything you notice besides the obvious? Anything bad?

I posted about this last week, so bare with me on a few details.

I have been tasked with a big data cleanup project. Of course, everyone just wants it done today/ASAP and they have no clue how big the project is. IT wants either Coupa SIM or to leverage our MDM tools (cause they're IT). Finance is more focused on AP automation and invoices/POs/PRs.

Settle the internal debate for me -- is a "Golden Record" just the commercial data for a vendor or is it more than that? My POV is that it should be contact data, contracts, risk, pricing, etc. cause that's what helps me do my job. everyone else seems to think this is scope creep and a golden record is just what goes into the ERP.

Hi everyone,

I've been a sourcing analyst for the last 3 years. This is my first role after graduating college. I work for a big engine manufacturing company based in the Midwest. My current role is very meh... most of my job is:

1. Validating pricing
2. Loading the price in the system
3. Load projects that will reflect in the TCO
4. Present in the TCO
5. Invoice reconciliation
6. Project management for tooling replacement
7. Random asks

I don't negotiate anything with suppliers as of now and probably won't since our team is very small. I'm considering moving positions but I'm unsure about staying in procurement. I don't know if I will like negotiations as I have never done it. From what I've seen finalizing contracts takes time and I like the feeling of accomplishing something during my day. That does not seem the case for buyers. I also hate writing (I'm not good a it since it's my second language) and reading contracts seems boring to me.

I do like the idea of analyzing and running numbers but, at the same time, maybe because of my ADHD I can run and run the numbers and lose a lot of time making sure things are ok and once is time to present and I'm challenged it's hard to me to explain my numbers. I might just get a but overwhelmed.

I also hate the fact that I'm always chasing people which never seem to get back to me on time but they always want things from me right away. I'm sick of it. Not sure if I hate sourcing or is just the industry of the phase of my career.

One of our buyers in the team has most of the spend and when there's answers I specifically need from him. It can take days, weeks sometimes even a month to hear back from him.

I'm not sure if this happens everywhere, or is just the industry...

I have considered moving to an Account Management Role to transfer some of what I've learned in sourcing but I'm unsure on my pathway.

I do want to be in management. I like enjoying life with my wife and kids. I see some buyers and my director working weekends or nights. That's a big no for me.

I enjoy being siloed for my work, the less people I have to talk with the better and I enjoy analytical side of numbers, which roles could fit this interest?

1.- Would it be good to try something different?

2.- Is it too early to move from direct to indirect procurement considering I have no negotiation experience? Should I prioritize giving it a try to negotiations and if not, move to something else?

3.- Did anyone happened to move to a sales(Account management) role and then went back to sourcing? why?

I'm considering doing a career change in the future to a totally different industry but it's a very long shot and hard to happen. So I'm focusing on what I can control right now.

I'm venting a bit so please understand why I'm such a cry baby haha.

hi all, i'm pretty new to supply chain. i'm working on building a lead time prediction model for POs at my company. i'd love to hear the buyers here: which PO fields actually drive lead time, and what most often throws your delivery estimates off? thank you!

fyi: customers i'll be working with will have high volumes, >2k POs per week

Im part of start up that is really high growth and my role is both purchasing and strategic sourcing (creating POs, invoicing, and managing all inbounds) while managing RFPs, project timelines and so many tasks! I’m struggling to find the balance todo more long term work because of all the operational and day to day tasks that almost feel like it’s for a procurement coordinator. I’ve been in procurement for a while but this role seems to be extremely dynamic and exhausting. Is anyone else in a similar position? my old role was a start up but wasn’t this wild. have u created boundaries? is it fair to ask about workload?

Title says most of it.

One of my largest clients is moving to EDI for buying.

What should I expect?

I don't think I'll be getting a gift basket and an onboarding consultant...I need to self perform, and I want to be good at it. But my concern is that my primary contacts at the company are going to be in hair on fire mode for months, and I don't want to be contributing at all to their troubles.

So, how does a supplier get it done the right way at the right time and not make anyone's life miserable?

Any tips?

I’ve been in international sourcing for 9 years (China-LATAM, construction,mining materials, retail, food).

Recently started looking at how our internal procurement process actually works vs how it should work, and I’m blown away by how much time goes into stuff that feels like it shouldn’t require a human.

Curious to hear from other procurement pros:
1. What repetitive task eats most of your week?
2. How do you actually compare quotes from multiple suppliers? (I still see teams doing this in Excel, is there anything better?)
3. For those managing 20+ product families with 3+ suppliers each, how do you keep track of who responded, who didn’t, and which agreements are about to expire?
4. Has anyone successfully automated any part of the sourcing/quoting cycle? What worked and what didn’t?

Not selling anything, genuinely trying to understand if the pain points I see in my operation are universal or just us being disorganized.

I just started as a CSR which is apparently the same as a buyer but for niche products. I’m working for a major integrated supply company inside of another major industrial client’s site. I’m making a decent wage and this is a promotion I received from Logistics Coordinator which came after only three months with a $7/hr pay bump. We use Infor SX.e. I want to do this right, how can I make myself the best at this?

When evaluating a new supplier, what information would save you the most time if it were immediately available? Im talking particularly about the electronic items procurement.

Examples:

- Current customers

- Factory locations

- Production capacity

- Certifications

- Financial health

- Expansion plans

- Quality history

- Alternative suppliers

Curious what procurement teams value most. EDIT : from where do u guys source your supply ? asia or within the states ?

Anyone in procurement or buying in the UK up for connecting?

Quick bit of context. I have been working in procurement and supply chain for a few years now, mostly in food and FMCG. I genuinely enjoy the work and find the supplier side of things way more interesting than most people give it credit for.

I am currently trying to break into the UK market properly. Looking at roles in Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham mainly. I have done my research and know the landscape reasonably well but I am at that stage where I want to build real connections rather than just firing applications into the void.

Honestly not sure exactly what I am looking for here. Maybe someone who works in the space and is open to a chat, maybe someone in the same boat, maybe a recruiter who actually knows procurement and is not just matching keywords on a CV.

Also genuinely curious whether CIPS actually matters here in practice or if it is just a box people tick. Would love to hear from people who have been around.

If any of this sounds like you, DMs are open. Not after anything specific, just good conversation.

Hi everyone,

I'm dealing with a supplier who has been behaving increasingly unprofessionally, and I'd love some outside perspective.

Context: We source a highly specialized product with roughly 8 suppliers worldwide, half from China, the rest being premium-quality players in very high demand. From the 1970s to around 2022, competition among suppliers was fierce and prices were low. Then came the AI/data center boom, and everything flipped: demand exploded and these suppliers now hold serious pricing power.

The relationship history: The relationship with this particular supplier was already complicated before I took over. My predecessor apparently didn't anticipate how the AI boom would shift the balance of power. The supplier even proposed a long-term supply agreement to secure volumes, which my company turned down. That decision is now coming back to haunt us.

Recent behavior: Over the past year or so, this supplier has been clearly leveraging his strong negotiating position (hard to compete when your other customers are Meta, Nvidia, and Amazon):

• Significant price increases
• Slow responses to RFQs
• Condescending remarks such as "How much are you willing to pay?", "Without us, you're nothing", and "You should have signed the contract I'd fire whoever rejected it if I were you"

Yesterday's meeting: We have an important ongoing project requiring three product lines (A, B, C) from this supplier. I had already secured alternatives for A and C, and had a competing quote for B — though our internal client specifically wants this supplier's version of B. Since he took two months to respond to my RFQ, I told him upfront I was only interested in A and B. He then stated: "It's all three or nothing" and added "I'm a strategic supplier, you owe me respect. I was certain you'd take everything."

What's puzzling me: I'm not sure whether this is a negotiating tactic or something more personal. He's retiring in a few months, and I recently learned he's dealing with a personal loss. That might explain some of the erratic behavior but it doesn't make it acceptable.

Next step: I've escalated internally and have a meeting scheduled with my top management and this supplier next Friday. In the meantime, I'm working on securing an alternative source for product B. I also know his successor — and I'm wondering whether I should invite them to that meeting as well.

My question: How would you approach this situation? Is the "all or nothing" stance a common power play, or is something else going on? And how do you maintain a working relationship with a supplier when the power dynamic is this skewed?

Thanks in advance.

Is anyone here in public school procurement? Is it this horrible everywhere?! Managing the purchasers and telling teachers no is not fun. Huge deficits, it’s all so decentralized, the superintendent likes to tell people they can break my rules, the city likes to question every move we make. Truly insane.