Last week in "Who's Minding the Hen House" (http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2008/08/whos-minding-hen-house.html), we looked at objectivity in the sourcing and supplier selection process. While there are people that act in their own best interest vs their company, there are also people that work to capture every cent of available savings for their company.

Consider the following email sent by one of our clients' purchasing managers to two of their plant locations (edited for privacy reasons only):

Within the past two weeks, purchase orders were placed with Supplier A and Supplier B. Based on our corporate discount level, we anticipate that our company lost $333.97
in savings at Plant A and $394.76 at Plant B.

The selection of our primary supplier went through a formal strategic sourcing process and was approved by our sourcing and management team. Please make sure that lubes and greases are being ordered from our approved supplier, unless there is significant justification as to why we could not purchase these items from them.

If you have any questions, please contact me. Thank you for your cooperation and assistance.

This email was copied to several executives including the company CEO. Needless to say, the two locations "got the message" and contract compliance is running near 100%. The purchasing manager should be commended for taking an unpopular stance for the benefit of his company. He could have just looked the other way.

Do I need to say more?