Your second supplier has never had a real order

Most single-source risk is recorded as managed because a second name exists on a list. The purchase ledger usually tells a different story.

By Steve 5 min read
Abstract bridge artwork for Your second supplier has never had a real order

Ask a management team whether a critical input is single-sourced and the answer is often no: there is an approved alternative, a quote on file, perhaps a signed framework agreement. Ask what proportion of spend went to that alternative last year and the answer is frequently nothing, or a trial order small enough to be a rounding error. The risk register says dual-sourced. The purchase ledger says single-sourced with a phone number. This gap matters because the two states behave completely differently under stress, and the whole point of a…

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