Unlearning to Learn: A Vested Approach to Services Acquisition Episode 13 of the Public Procurement Leaders Podcast with Kate Vitasek on 16 January 2019. Here’s the link: https://www.publicspendforum.net/podcasts/vested-services-acquisition-kate-vitasek/
All I Want for Christmas and the New Year…
As I ponder the holiday season and the start of a New Year, I wonder – from a Vested perspective of course – what would happen if Christmas stockings and New Year resolutions contained: Collaboration instead of coal Win-win instead of whine-whine Trust instead of truculence Integrity instead of infamy Value instead of venom Decency […]
ISM Weekly — 26 November 2018
Implementing a Successful Supplier Sourcing Contract Article by Kate Vitasek published by Inside Supply Management Weekly on 26 November 2018. Some sourcing business deals are simple to negotiate, especially when they are basic transactional deals, such as for office supplies. Other more strategic sourcing contracts might go through difficult and lengthy RFP processes… Here is […]
Forbes — November 2018
Paul Romer: The Path To Economic Growth And Innovation Article by Kate Vitasek published in Forbes on 19 November 2018 Business professionals can learn a valuable lesson about the path to economic growth and innovation from Paul Romer, this year’s Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences (shared with William Nordhaus). Romer views the economy as a “huge innovation […]
The Problem with Supplier Trust
The problem with trust when it comes to suppliers is that they probably supply many different companies, perhaps even your competitors – so how do you trust them? But have you stopped to think the reverse is also true: how can suppliers trust their buyers? This is a situation as old as the buyer-supplier relationship […]
Telia-Veolia Case Study
We’ve published the latest example of Vested in practice, a case study describing how Telia – a Swedish telecom company – applied the Request for Partner process to get to a Vested agreement with Veolia, one of its long-time suppliers. Simply put, Vested helped them go from a supplier-buyer relationship to a true strategic partnership. […]
Trust the Price Tag?
The concept of a price tag is only about 140 years old. Prior to that transactions were a negotiation between buyer and seller. Basically, everything was a yard sale, with haggling expected. Today of course, haggling about the price of an airline seat or an entree at your favorite restaurant is a lost cause. The price […]
Most Negotiated vs. Most Important Contract Terms
It’s here! IACCM has released this year’s report on the most negotiated contract terms, which provides insight into the contracting practices of more than 2,100 organizations. One of the major insights of the survey identifies . Writing recently in his Commitment Matters column, IAACM president Tim Cummins said that participants confirmed “the steady shift of business […]
Teams and Social Norms
I’ve talked about the need for establishing guiding principles—or social norms—for negotiating and operating strategic contract relationships but . It’s important that the norms embodied in the “what’s in it for we?” contract negotiation process be firmly embedded throughout the organization, or else new and existing relationships will struggle. Everyone should be on the same […]
Carillion Needed a Strong Dose of Vested
Carillion, the large British multinational facilities management and construction services company that went bankrupt early this year, is a textbook example of how not to collaborate, communicate and well, do business. Julie Jackson, managing director at OCS Group, summed up the situation nicely in a recent article for FMWorld. “If we can’t agree on a different way […]
