The philosophy of sourcing

Sourcing decisions are all the more powerful as a solution to business issues because sourcing is a process with no end point – a discipline that never achieves an ultimate conclusion. Adopting the philosophy of sourcing means looking constantly across existing and potential suppliers and locations, and seeking out the right balance amongst quality, economics, flexibility and innovation. It also means adopting the new mindset shown in Figure 7.1 – one on which the balance shifts away from attributes such as the scale and size of the organization itself, to focus more on the skills it can bring to bear and the resulting outputs such as speed of execution.

Figure 7.1. The new mindset